


Forget Me Not

by butterflychansan



Series: Wisteria [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Artists, College AU, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Jean's POV, M/M, Past, Trapped in the Closet, florist Marco, idk more tags later, illustrator Marco, painter Jean, police officer Jean, prequel to Wisteria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:21:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 94,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflychansan/pseuds/butterflychansan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU, the prequel to Wisteria.</p><p>From his first day of college, Jean Kirschtein is determined to be different: the guy he always wanted to be. The student who gets good grades without trying, the painter whose art blows everyone away, the cool kid, the guy who gets all the girls. He's tired of being the youngest brother in a privileged, impressive family -- the kid with no reason to be angry all the time and no plans for his life other than to paint. He's tired of being afraid of everyone, wondering if they can tell what he's hiding.</p><p>Art college is his dream. This is his year. School, art, girls, freedom, independence, hell yeah. And then he meets his new roommate. Marco Bodt sweeps him off his feet -- or more specifically, knocks him on his ass.</p><p>Forget Me Not is a collection of memories. It's the struggle of a boy who falls in love with someone who accepts him for who he is, when no one ever taught him how to accept himself. It's the story of choosing duty over love; family over his own failures; what he thinks is right over what he knows he wants. Told by the man who knows how the story ends, but has to make sure you know how it began.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pompeii

**Author's Note:**

> "But if you close your eyes, / does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all? / And if you close your eyes, / does it almost feel like you've been here before? / How am I gonna be an optimist about this?"
> 
> \- Bastille, "Pompeii"

Prologue

Six Years After

I started measuring my life by one moment. There’s before it and there’s after it.

It’s not really logical to base it all on this one point in time, it’s not like in that moment my epiphany suddenly came down from the sky with wings and a puff of fucking smoke. It took a long time for me to see how stupid I was. It took even longer to figure out how to change. But hey, I’m not the most logical guy.

I think about it a lot. I have to. I have to understand the pain, live with the regret, deal with the fear. It makes me strong. It makes me grateful. So I put all the little moments in order, counting everything that matters, the good and the bad, when I was a coward and when I was the man he always thought that I could be. 

The “before” and “after” helps. It’s like one of those weight loss commercials, you know what I mean? You need to see the mess you were before you can feel how amazing right now is.

There are better moments I could pick for this. My wedding day, or the day I was shot. Our first anniversary. The day my daughter was born. The day I woke up and I wasn’t afraid. But no one ever really stops being afraid, and these points in my life... they are miraculous and incredible “afters.”

The one I chose isn’t the beginning or the end.

I’m a fucking idiot sometimes. And I’m stubborn, and I’m grumpy, and I’m risky, and I think too much, and I'm brutally honest, and when I’m nervous I overcompensate and call him “sweetheart” eight million times, and I make decisions with body parts that aren’t my brain. Believe me, I know. I just have to go through some really tough shit before I can ever understand what’s important to me. But now I understand.

I was afraid for so long. It’s important to know why. It’s important because it made me the man I am today. He made me the man I am today.

Give me time. I’ll get there. I’ll figure it out.

My name is Jean Kirschtein, by the way.


	2. Over My Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I never knew / I never knew that everything was falling through / that everyone I knew was waiting on a cue / to turn and run when all I needed was the truth."  
> \- A Day To Remember, "Over My Head (cover)"

Six Years Before 

It was me and a pile of my shit stacked shoulder level on one side of my new dorm room. That’s my first memory of college. Standing in the empty bedroom by myself, wondering whether I should unpack before or after I ripped my goddamn clothes off in celebration. Did it matter? No. Was anyone going to tell me otherwise? Fuck no.

Was I finally free? Yes.

My mom wasn’t one for displays of affection, so she hadn’t bothered to come with us, and my dad had left as soon as we’d finished unloading the car. He’d already given me his goodbye speech on the drive here: don’t smoke anything, don’t dye your hair, don’t turn queer, and don’t fail any tests. Or that’s what I think he said, half of it was in French.

It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t do any of that anyway. And I was free.

It was just me and my pile of shit, and it made me feel dazed with happiness.

The other guys were still moving into my hallway -- the floor of our dorm was pretty much that, just one long hallway lined with doors and a community bathroom at the end -- the other freshmen, dudes I had talked to at Orientation. Or rather... we had nodded at each other, and kinda side-glanced at once or twice, in between awkward ice breakers and lectures from over-excited group leaders. Everyone was shy, I don’t know. They told us that the friends we made at Orientation would be our friends for life, but I didn’t find anyone to talk to, so. 

Whatever. My roommate was a sophomore, and whoever he was, I was determined to be friends with the kid. Take that, orientation leaders. If he ever showed up -- his side of the room was still bare -- it was going to be great.

Every so often, one of the other guys would walk past my open doorway, their arms loaded with stuff for their rooms. Mini fridges, suitcases, art supplies, garbage bags of crap. My stomach would twist every time, because I probably should go talk to them. Offer to help them. Be social. Figure out what to say.

But then their parents would be right behind him, and I’d catch some weepy, nostalgic comment about movin’ in! Growin’ up! Love ya sport!

First decision I made as an independent college student: I kicked my bedroom door shut to block it out.

Second decision: I dug through my duffel bag of clothes, scrounging around down to the shoulder until I found my red beanie and tugged it over my hair. Mild September weather be damned, my mom would always rip this thing right off my head if she caught me wearing it, and you know what? I’m wearing it.

I was finally going to be me. The me that I wanted everyone to see.

Unpacking was like a satanic ritual for me. Fulfilling, empowering, a carefully methodical thought-through step-by-step process, and you knew someone was bound to get hurt. I kept falling off my bed -- they’re those ones that rise high off the ground, almost four feet tall so you can shove all your crap underneath it, you know what I mean? I kept forgetting that it was a twin bed and not my double back home, forgetting how far I had to fall. But let me tell you, the joy that came with landing ass-first on the linoleum and knowing I was going to be doing it for a whole year. For four years. And my mom wasn’t yelling from downstairs, telling me to stop making noise. I still cringed subconsciously though, waiting for it.

I put posters on my walls first: my favorite band, a print of a Van Gogh painting, and a pennant from my high school soccer team. Then the calendar that my older brother had given me, although I almost decided against it. Yeah, thanks, Emile, I know you swear by calendars for helping you with schoolwork, but you were so busy studying for your LSATs that you didn’t notice when you bought me one covered in fluffy kittens. 

Still. He tried. That was more than could be said for the rest of my family. The fluffy kittens went on my wall.

This was the first time in my whole pathetic life I’d been allowed to choose the sheets on my bed. You wouldn’t think it matters, but it matters. I went with dark blue sheets and an awesome-looking dark blue comforter, something that I was positive would never be featured in an interior design magazine. My mother hated it. I loved it.

I shoved my clothes into the dresser under my bed, and whatever didn’t fit got thrown at the bottom of my wardrobe thing. I got my soap and bathroom stuff in order, plugged a lamp in on my desk, figured out the weird, expensive iHome my eldest brother had bought for me and put it next to my bed. 

I saved the best for last. I sat down slowly at my desk and started unpacking my art supplies.

There is something positively fucking seductive about having a place to put your paintbrushes. No more stuffing them in my backpack or keeping them at school so my mom wouldn’t get aggravated with them. I dedicated a whole drawer just to paint supplies, long bristled brushes and roll upon roll of masking tape, feeling the coolness of the acrylic paint in their tubes and bottles before I stowed them away as well. I was gonna take this damn drawer on a hot date right then and there, the whole desk, the whole room. Romantic as hell, fancy dinner and everything, just to show it how goddamned special it was. Finally mine. Space. Peace. No one yelling about paint stains on the taupe carpet. No one muttering in French of German or whatever else my mom spoke around me, when she didn’t want me to hear what she was saying.

Finally, everything had it’s place. I sat back in my desk chair and surveyed the room with deep satisfaction. My bed was made for the first (and probably last) time this semester. Only a few empty boxes were stacked under the window sill, but they cast interesting shadows in the warm sunlight streaming through the window, so I left them. My mini-fridge hummed happily where it fit under my bed.

I folded my arms behind my head and stretched.

Independence. Peace. Quiet.

There was a loud slam against the outside of my bedroom door; I nearly fell out of my freaking chair. And then I heard a laugh, warm and deep -- then another slam, this one a heavy cushioned thump! against the door, and two voices. A few goodbyes, a gruff “good luck,” and the voice that had laughed called, “thanks Dad,” down the hall. 

The doorknob jiggled in the door. That’s all it did, moving around a little, like he couldn’t get a grip on it. I heard him mutter through the door, “C’mon ya thing...”

I got up and pulled the door open from the inside. And got hit right in the face with a stack of crap: canvases and sketchbooks, and a laundry basket stuffed to the keels with clothes. Flowing like an avalanche of shit into the room, there was impressive weight behind it, and more stuff that he’d stacked against the wall, taking me surprise --

Basically, I fell on my ass in the doorway, covered with his stuff.

“Oh my god,” said the voice, “I killed my roommate.”

“Nice to meet you too,” I replied, through gritted teeth, my vision going starry. I hit my head on the floor, ok? And my beanie was gone, trapped somewhere under the mountain, and my hair was a mess like it always was, the blond part on top flopping viciously whichever way it pleased, and I propped myself up on one elbow and rubbed the back of my head, ow--

The kid yanked the stuff off me until he could see me. When I looked up at him, dazed, he leaned forward, his hands on his knees, trying to see if I was ok... 

And he laughed.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, his eyes wide. Big brown eyes, the puppy dog eyes people always mention in crappy fiction, but these were real, and the freckles set them off perfectly, I wondered vaguely if I had hit my head in just the right place that I was hallucinating an L.L. Bean commercial with this guy, looking like this, a flannel left unbuttoned and loose over his t-shirt and the sleeves shoved to his elbows. And all those freckles, Jesus, smudged on the bridge of his nose and across both cheeks, on his neck and his arms, is this dude even real?

Yes, this dude was real. And he was holding his hand out for me to take, and I was staring at him. With my mouth kinda hanging open.

“Are you ok?” He asked slowly.

My head was still throbbing, and my first impression on my first roommate in my life on my first day of college had just gone down, and now he probably thought that I was weird as shit. Great. 

I took his hand, and he pulled me up.

“Yeah, yeah--” I muttered quickly, “sorry. Hit my head.”

Playing it cool yet again. Very cool. Not lame at all. Obviously.

I reached down into the pile and shoved my beanie onto my head again, trying not to let my face burn as bright a red as the hat. The guy turned away, hauling more stuff into the room, and I jumped to help. Together we carried in the rest.

“Sorry about that,” he said as we worked. “I don’t normally try to murder freshmen, I’m nice, really.”

I could have been pissed at him. If this were last year, I would have been. Last week, even. But I wasn’t going to be the grumpy as shit Jean Kirschtein from high school; I wasn’t going to shut this guy down on the spot. I could tell he was nice.

So I let myself let it go, and I laughed.

“No worries,” I insisted, picking up his frazzled looking microwave. “Where do you want this?”

The guy popped up suddenly from underneath his bed, and slapped a hand on the top of his mattress with a smile. I lifted the microwave onto the bed and shoved it so it wouldn’t fall off. Trying not to make any weird noises, because he probably already thought I was a nerd, and this was just going fantastic.

He grinned at me, then after a minute, spoke. “Oh-- you can use it whenever you want, I don’t mind. The rule is just keep it clean, last year it almost crawled away by itself.”

“Same goes for the mini fridge,” I replied, pointing a thumb at it.

“Hell yeah! Thanks, man.”

That made me smile again, despite myself and my nerves. We looked at each other for a second, and I got that whole strange, tense, heightened, fluttery feeling you get when you meet someone for the first time. In the pit of my stomach, you know what I mean?

Well I actually don’t know what I mean either, because I’d never really felt it before, but I liked it. The awkwardness was comfortable; we were on the same level, both determined, both pumped about moving in. Maybe this is what it’s like to really make a good friend, I guess. I don’t know.

“My name’s Jean, by the way,” I said quickly. 

“So that’s how you pronounce it.” He leaned against the bed and smiled again. “I got the housing letter with your name, and I wondered. Yeah, you definitely aren’t a Jean kind of guy.” He said it like ‘gene,’ then said it again the right way. “Jean. Very cool.”

“Thanks.” I like the way he said it. It made me feel cool. I wondered what kind of guy he thought I was.

And I still didn’t know his name. My roommates had kept getting switched, so I never got my final housing letter. My face started to redden again, fucking nerd.

“-- Oh,” he said, seeing my expression, “I’m Marco. Sorry.”

He looked like a Marco. And he smiled a lot.

I don’t remember what I said, a “cool” or a “nice to meet you” probably, I just remember realizing how close we were standing. I stepped away immediately, launching myself onto my bed across the room, letting my legs swing over the side.

“These freaking things are ridiculous,” I said, still unsteady.

“You’ll get used to them quick,” Marco said as he started unpacking. “It’s weirder at home, when you’re so close to the ground. You’re a freshman, right?”

“Yep.” I waited for him to tease me like my brothers did. Newbie. Frosh.

“That’s awesome,” was all he said. “Do you know what you want to major in?”

“Uh. Probably-- well, definitely painting. I paint a lot.”

“You’re gonna love the painting department,” Marco replied over his shoulder. “I’m an Illustration major,” he added proudly, “just declared.”

“Ah, that’s so cool.” 

I watched him hop up lightly on his bed, his legs longer than mine and making the climb look so much more graceful. Damn it. Marco unknotted his white sheets from their ball and started hooking the elasticated hem of the bottom sheet over the mattress. 

“So how was orientation?” He asked. 

My first instinct was to play it cool. Complain. Pretend you hate it, because everyone always hates something, right? Easiest way to start a conversation in high school. But this wasn’t high school, and Marco wasn’t an idiot, and he actually sounded like he cared. So I took a deep breath, stepped away from the old me, and answered honestly.

“It was terrifying. They just kinda throw you in with all these people and smash you together, hope you become friends. And all the rules and campus stuff and directions to the buildings, you can’t keep anything straight.”

“I know man, believe me. You’ll get it eventually, and you can ask me anything. No problem at all.” Marco smiled slightly, flopping back on his newly made bed...

“Hey,” I said, surprised. “We have the same comforter.”

He looked down, then up at me, then laughed. “I guess we’re meant to be, right?”

“Hell yeah.” I grinned at him. 

Marco said exactly what I was thinking. “This year is going to be great, I can feel it.” He slid off his bed onto the floor. “Hey, has anyone shown you Mina’s yet? The pizza place, down the street.”

When I shook my head, he scooped his keys off his desk and nodded toward the door.

“C’mon, Jean, I’ll finish unpacking later. Prepare for your mind to explode.”

 

*

 

The pizza was amazing. I mean, I have always treated pizza like crack because my mom wouldn’t let me eat it when she was around, so this. This was like discovering an ancient, lost Aztec temple ruin in the middle of the forest by chance. It was a great artwork hung in the Louvre. People cry. I almost cried.

We sat in one of the booths in Mina’s, working our way through a second large box. We’d been here for a long time, I don’t know how long, but it was hilarious. Marco was hilarious. And we didn’t have anything to do today, I’d finished all my orientation stuff and classes didn’t start until tomorrow. So we just... hung out. Hours, maybe. Enough for a third round of pizza, which we split down the middle to pay for. 

I didn’t want him to be hanging out with me because I was a pathetic freshman. I told him once that he didn’t have to stay here with me, if he had friends or whatever. He said he was doing fine right here, and even though I was doubtful, I didn’t mention it again.

He was funny as hell, and so... nice. Not the nice that freaks you out and makes you wonder if he’s manipulating you. I mean the kind of nice that makes you want to be nice too. That was Marco. He’d give me the whole pizza if I’d asked him for it. But I wouldn’t have, because the faces he made when he was enjoying the food were fucking priceless.

I thanked Jesus and Satan and whoever was listening that I hadn’t gotten a prick for a roommate. I could already tell I was lucky. Thank you for not giving me someone awful or boring or creepy. Thank you for Marco.

“Yuthnk umot,” he said to me out of nowhere, his mouth full.

“Huh?” I said, my mouth full as well.

Marco chewed, then swallowed. “I said you think a lot. Intense.”

“Mmmpfh.” I swallowed like half a slice. “I’ve always been like that.”

“I like it. I was just sayin’. It’s cool. Some people just never really think anymore, you know?”

“You mean my whole family,” I said warily. “My whole high school.”

He smiled slightly. “Are you one of those kids who never goes home?”

“I wish. My mom is already planning for me to go back two weeks from now. I’m gonna be the best roommate you ever had, because I’ll hardly ever be here. On the weekends, anyway -- so there’s a plus for you and your girlfriend.”

I figured he had a girlfriend. There was no way he didn’t have someone.

“Make sure you don’t spend too much time at home,” Marco replied. “It really makes the whole moving-out process harder. And don’t worry about the girlfriend thing. I mean, I don’t have a girlfriend -- I’m gay, but I don’t have a boyfriend, either. Just me.”

That threw me for a fucking loop.

“Oh,” was all I could say.

Marco shook his head and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Ok, Jean. Here it is. I’m not gonna have a crush on you. I’m not gonna fall in love with you, I’m not gonna try anything. Don’t worry about it. Pretend I never said anything.”

“No -- fuck. No, that’s not... It’s fine. It’s totally cool. Really.” I was flustered. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

He ran a hand through his hair again, absentminded; his fingers were long, and his hair always flopped right back into place, parted the way it was.

“It’s ok,” he said finally. “Don’t worry about it.”’

“You just...” I hesitated. “You seem... Normal.”

Marco bit his lip. “Thanks, I guess.”

No. Fuck. I could literally feel him pulling away from me, crossing me off mental checklists. He was the nicest person I’d met yet, and I had pissed him off. I didn’t give two shits about him being gay, anyone else could be gay except me, literally, I didn’t want him to think I was an asshole or--

I freaked out. I jumbled my words. I apologized, and I never do that.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, my face burning. “I’m sheltered as hell, and the only gay kid in my high school had bright fucking pink hair and wore high heels all the time. I didn’t mean anything.. I didn’t. Really. I never say the right fucking thing.”

Marco smiled at me. “Don’t worry about it, ok? It doesn’t matter. We’re cool. And I’m pretty sure I forgot my heels at home.”

I grinned back at him. Like an idiot, probably. I was so grateful. He forgave me and my uncultured, disgustingly honest mouth; he moved on like he understood what I meant, and no one ever understood what I meant. He didn’t judge me, or glance at the kitschy fork and knife clock on the wall, waiting for the right time to leave. He never took his eyes off me. It was easy. It was easy with him, and it had never been easy before, not even with my friends back home.

We had mulled over the topic of classes and teachers and clubs, finishing the last of the pizza, when the door of the shop creaked open on it’s hinges and someone called, “Hey! Marco!”

We both turned to look, and I realized with a jolt that it was already late afternoon. The sun was setting outside the windows. I hadn’t been looking at the clock either. 

The guy looked like he was fifteen, slender and fine-featured, wispy blonde hair caught up and tied back with a rubber band. But when he came over to our table, he spoke like he was fifty. Intelligent, sure, light but steady. The contrast was insane. It was cool, he would have made for a cool painting.

“Jean,” Marco said, grinning again, “this is Armin, he’s one of the best guys here. Jean’s thinking about being a painting major like you, Min.” 

Armin turned his bright blue eyes on me. “Welcome to the island of misfit toys, my friend. You’ll figure out whether you’re a painting major or not on the first day, I guarantee it.”

“Awesome.” I watched his eyes move, from me to Marco and back to me. I watched his brain work. My palms started to sweat. 

No. No. No. This is the new me. Not the one who gets mistaken like this, not the one who can’t sit in a fucking booth with his fucking friend without being terrified that someone will think that we’re --

“Am I interrupting you guys?” Armin said, keeping it subtle. “I apologize.”

Marco laughed slightly. “No, Jean’s my new roommate, and no one ever told him about this place before.”

Armin nodded, his eyes sliding away from my face. “It’s a staple. Hey, Eren and I were going over to Christa’s new apartment, would you guys want to come? I’m getting the pizza, and Ymir’s threatening to get beer, but we’ll see.” 

“Uh--” Marco turned to me. “Yeah, definitely. Do you want to come, Jean?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, my eyes on the table. “Yeah, no, I, uh. I gotta go get my stuff together for tomorrow, make sure I have everything for my classes. Thanks, though.”

Armin nodded and headed toward the other side of the place, where he picked up the pizzas he’d ordered. Marco leaned forward across the table.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” he asked. “I pretty much never drink, and it’s not like that. It would just be hanging out.”

Oh. He thought I was getting all antsy because I was nervous about socializing. At least he had no idea about the real reason. Even if I could tell that Armin did.

I shook my head, telling him to go, I’d catch up with him later. When he left with Armin, I headed back to my dorm by myself, managing to find it without getting lost.

I held it in. I couldn’t do this in front of anyone. I was almost light-headed by the time I got into my room. As soon as the door closed behind me, I was on my knees, doubled over on the floor and trying not to puke. 

 

Too much pizza. Too many thoughts. Too much fear. Too much.

Panic was a really difficult thing to deal with because no one had ever taught me how to deal with it. My mother Prozac’d hers away, if she really even ever experienced it this bad. I couldn’t ask her for pills, and I wasn’t going to steal from her. But I couldn’t tell her about the attacks, because then I’d have to tell her what it was I panicked about. I just dealt with it. Self taught. Keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breathing.

The floor was cool against my cheek when I plopped down on my side and curled up. Marco’s stuff was still half unpacked, scattered across the floor; I nudged myself a space with the toe of my sneaker. And I stayed there for a long time.

No. No. I was not this person anymore.

I was the guy at college. The guy who would be cool, who would have his shit together and have a girlfriend, good friends, good grades, and maybe a job in no time. I was the guy who was going to prove his parents wrong, and make them proud.

That guy didn’t think about these things. That guy’s stomach didn’t knot when another guy laughed, or notice his freckles, or shit like that. 

I’d been so relaxed, everything I said and did -- how did I come off? Did I sound like I was flirting with him or something? Armin had answered that question for me. Did Marco not think I could get a girlfriend, since he hadn’t asked me about it? Because I could. I totally could.

It was like that, a constant rotation of terrified thoughts. It got worse and worse in my head. I kept hearing my dad’s checklist he’d given me in the car. Without my mother to dismiss him, he gave me his best no-nonsense voice. And he dipped in and out of French, because in my family, when you’re saying something really important, you don’t say it in English.

“Don’t dye your hair,” he’d said, “and don’t smoke anything. Et fils. Ne deviens pas gay et n'échoues pas aux examens."

Don’t dye your hair and don’t smoke anything. And son. Don’t turn queer or fail any tests.

Did he know, or was he just being cautious?

Because my oldest brother Olivier had just started a residency as a surgeon at a prestigious hospital in Washington, and Emile was in his last year at an Ivy League. And Jean, the youngest brother, well, there must be something wrong with him. He was smart and had potential, but all he wanted to do was go to art school. He was the one most likely to be gay, right? Something was off with that kid.

Did my dad know, or was he just trying to make sure it didn’t happen?

He couldn’t know. I’d never had a guy over the house unless it was a group of buddies, or my whole soccer team. I’d had girlfriends all through high school. They never lasted, and it was always awkward, but that’s high school for you, right? Right?

My panic came and went like it did, starting with an answer, ending with a question. I finally got off the floor and changed into basketball shorts and my favorite Punisher t-shirt, feeling more like me again. Calmer. 

That’s not me. Not anymore. I’m not the insecure little shit who can’t breathe because he’s terrified of someone thinking that he’s gay. Of his parents looking at him like he's even more of a failure than they thought. Of his friends not looking at him at all. 

I’m this guy. College guy. And I had a good roommate, and it didn’t matter if he was gay, because that didn’t change how hilarious he was. I was irrational, and it was dumb, and I had so many other things to worry about. 

I climbed into bed, engulfed in the acrylic smell of the new sheets, and propped open my sketchbook in my lap. I drew until I fell asleep, slumped against the pillows. 

Fell asleep refusing to think about what Marco’s hands looked like when he ran his fingers through his hair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jean is my baby and the A Day To Remember cover of "Over My Head" is my headcanon song for him and cries
> 
> also, spoiler alert, if anyone has any tips/advice on translating French, I'd love some feedback for future chapters!!
> 
> thank you everyone for reading and niceness and ahhh <333


	3. Wake Me Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I tried carrying the weight of the world / but I only have two hands. / Hope I get the chance to travel the world / but I don't have any plans. / Wish that I could stay forever this young / not afraid to close my eyes."
> 
> \-- Avicii, "Wake Me Up"

The panic attack just happened that once. I swear. Because of the first day, and all the stress. I lost control, but it wasn’t going to happen again.

I’d never fallen in love, so quick and so hard, in my whole life.

I fell in love with art college. The classes, the teachers, the freedom, doing whatever I wanted. What I wanted was to paint and draw and have people recognize my potential in a way that no one had really given me before. What I wanted was to hang out with Marco and his friends, and I got to do that every day, all the time, probably too much, probably more than was cool. They became my friends, because if Marco saw something in me, they trusted his judgement and took me in without question. Eren was hilarious, one of the most passionate people I had ever met, and I teased him just to get him going and launch him into one of his tirades. Armin was quieter, but I got along with him better. Even though our personalities were so different, there was something so similar between us. Ymir and Christa were hilarious and extremely comfortable around me from the beginning; Mikasa was pretty as hell and barely spoke to me; Annie came and went as she pleased, never really saying much to anyone. Whatever. They were funny and lively, and if Marco liked them, I had to at least try.

We had a routine going within the first few days, Marco and I; you always end up with a routine when you live with someone, you have to figure out a way to move around each other. And we fit. We just fit. 

I couldn’t imagine being there without him. I already had a hard enough time in most of my classes -- the kids in my grade seemed alright, and I knew I should be trying to talk to them (the New Jean would talk to them) but I would rather just sit and listen to music while I work. That’s how I’d always been, I don’t know. If I didn’t have Marco, if I’d been roomed with anyone else? I’d be a grumpy shit, I’d just... sit there on the internet and go to bed at 8 every day.

Marco didn’t judge me. He didn’t look at me like I was a punk ass kid with antisocial tendencies and weird hair. He looked at me like I was me.

And if he noticed when I woke up every morning, too early, with my heart racing and gasping for breath like I’d just finished a marathon... If he noticed, then he didn’t say anything. 

I wake up angry. That’s how I’ve always been. 

Defensive. Alert. Afraid. Frustrated. Paranoid. Whatever you want to call it, whatever word your shrink comes up with. It always ended in anger anyway. I thought that college would make it better, that it would stop. It did get better for a while, a couple of days, because I was the new me, and this guy didn’t wake up afraid of who he was and what he might have said in his sleep, did he?

Angry. Not afraid. I’m not afraid of anything. Not this guy.

But I woke up Friday morning of my second week at school, the day that my dad was coming to pick me up so I could go home for the weekend. Sweat was dripping off of me. My chest was heaving. It took me a minute to realize that an alarm was blaring from Marco’s clock radio. “7:31,” it blinked at me from his nightstand across the room.

I went through my process. Take a deep breath, try not to let your brain go into overdrive, understand your surroundings, put the pieces together.

The clock radio stopped by itself after another minute, and the lump of boy in the bed across the room burrowed deeper under his covers before going still again.

I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling, feeling my anger -- my fear -- subside.

It’s ok. You’re here. You’re at college. You get to paint today. And you just have to get through two nights at home until you’re back here again. It’s ok.

It was another five minutes before the clock radio started going off again, the alarm even louder. From somewhere under his covers, Marco groaned. I looked over at him just in time to see the comforter shuffling -- a freckly arm shot out, reaching blindly for the clock. 

“Shhhh--” he moaned, finally managing to slam the snooze button, “--huut up.”

Despite myself, I smiled slightly.

It’s ok. I can do this. This is my life. New me.

This was our routine: I got up first, not bothering to be quiet because if I hadn’t slammed drawers getting clothes and shower stuff together, Marco would go right the fuck back to sleep. Then he got up, his hair stuck up in a cowlick at the back and his sweatpants riding up to his knee on one leg, baring the dark hair and muscle of his calf. He didn’t notice, stumbling around like a zombie.

I didn’t notice either, I’m just saying.

We walked to the bathroom at the end of the hall together because we both took showers in the morning. It took him a full minute or two for proper communication.

“Good morning,” Marco mumbled, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

“Too fucking early to be good yet,” I replied, glancing up at him.

“You’re telling me.”

The bathroom was always busy in the morning, and it was hard to get a sink that didn’t have a dude hanging over it, brushing his teeth or shaving. Most of them had clothes on, some already fully dressed, others in shorts or sweats like me and Marco. A few of them in nothing but boxers. One of them in pink lingerie.

Art school, man. Art school.

It was uneventful. Showering in a room full of guys, with Marco in the stall right next to me. I’d played soccer all through high school, I had done it a thousand times. It was uneventful.

I got out of there as soon as I could, my feet not even shoved into my shoes right before I was walking back.

We went to the dining hall together, hauling all of our stuff along for the first class. It was always just him and me for breakfast: no one else had to be up this early for classes. 

The dining hall was right across the street from our dorm, so the walk was short. Marco was only just starting to be himself, awake, when we got into the lobby and started to smell the food.

“Hey,” he said brightly, “look. They hung up work from the freshmen portfolios.” 

He was right: the walls of the lobby were covered with paintings, large printed photographs, drawings, close to a hundred different faces of the kids in my year. Everyone was required to do a self portrait for the application portfolio...

I found my painting hanging right by the entrance of the dining hall. I stopped in my tracks in front of it, pride swelling in my chest.

“Holy crap,” Marco said behind me. “It’s you.”

He drew up close to the painting, studying it quietly for a long minute. It felt like he was looking at me. I mean, he was looking at me, at the portrait I’d done of myself a few months ago with a black eye from a soccer match. But he was seeing me in the painting itself, too. My brush strokes -- the way I moved my hands. My color choices -- the way my mind worked. How I saw myself. How much time I spent hunched over this thing, careful with every detail.

Marco stared at this painting and saw a lot more of me than he could have if he’d turned around right then and looked me dead in the eye.

My face was turning red again, Jesus fuck.

He turned around and looked at me, his eyes wide. “This is incredible, Jean.”

No, my painting was amateur and I could see the parts that still needed to be fixed. Still, though. His compliment made my heart feel like it was expanding.

“Shut up,” I told him sheepishly, rubbing the back of my neck.

Marco grinned at me and clapped a hand on my shoulder as we walked into the dining hall. “It looks just like you. You’re talented, my friend. Accept it.”

I glanced sideways at him again, doubtful, about to argue with him, but we headed in different directions to get food. His hand slipped away.

I heaped my plate with pancakes and bacon, saving the best for last. Throwing it stolen glances, flirting with it, moving slow. It smelled so good. And there wasn’t even a line, I could go right up. Come to me, baby. Show me the coffee.

The coffee station was my favorite part. The lady behind the counter always looked at me like I was nuts, but I didn’t care. I thought I was gonna moan when she gave me a large. Black. Strong. And there were lids. I could take it with me. Ugh.

I found a new reason to like college every day.

We always sat at the same table by the window, he was already there. And he had a weird smile on his face when I sat down.

“What?” I said around a mouthful of bacon.

“So when are you gonna ask her out?” Marco choked back laughter. “The coffee lady? You don’t look at someone like that without taking her on a date first, man.”

I snorted. “We have an understanding.” 

“Make sure I’m the best man at your wedding,” he cackled, reaching across the table towards me. He grabbed the ketchup bottle by my elbow, twisting the cap off and unceremoniously dumping a huge pile of it onto his eggs.

I watched him with a look of horror on my face. He smothered his eggs. Stirred in a little more. Made sure it was nice and bloody red. Then he joyfully shoveled a forkful into his mouth -- and he froze, his eyes widening when he met my gaze, lowering the empty fork slowly.

“Yo,” I said. 

Marco smiled and chewed. “Come on. Ketchup with eggs. No?”

“Fuck no.”

“Try it. Have you even tried it?” He turned his plate toward me. The pungent smell of ketchup wafted.

I wrinkled my nose. “Oh man. I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”

Marco scooped up another forkful. “I do this to my french fries, too.”

“You’re a goddamned monster.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Don’t knock it until you try it. Hey, what time do you leave tonight?”

I’d forgotten about going home. Ugh. “Probably right after we get out of Art History,” I said, scowling.

“Hey, it will be fine,” Marco replied. “Just tell your dad that you’re the only freshman in an upperclassmen lecture, that will impress him.”

“He probably won’t believe me,” I said flatly.

“Well,” he said after a gulp of orange juice, “it’s a good thing you always show up to that class, because otherwise, nobody else would believe you either. Usually they slot freshmen into the Intro to Art History classes.”

I couldn’t help but smirk. “All 5s on my AP Tests. AP Art History, AP European History, and AP Literature. Those are the ones that the college gave me credits for, so I got to skip the Intros.”

Marco was looking at me like I’d told him I invented the lightbulb.

“Isn’t a 5 the highest you can get?” he asked, “I mean, my high school barely offered any AP classes, but damn--”

“Hell yeah it is.” 

Marco’s voice was playful. “You’re wicked smart. You’re an insane painter. There’s literally only one thing wrong with you, Kirschtein.”

I frowned and looked up at him, my stomach suddenly tightening.

He took his goddamned time to finish, downing his orange juice and wiping his mouth, hiking his heavy backpack onto his shoulder. Finally, he leaned across the table and grinned at me.

“How could you hate ketchup?” Marco asked. “Who does that? who actively hates ketchup?”

Oh. That’s it. I let out a small sigh of relief, then quickly hid it with a scoff.

Marco laughed and waved as he left, heading for class.

He had a freckle at the corner of his mouth. Just one, at the edge of his bottom lip. Like it had scattered away from the rest on his cheeks. 

I only noticed it because he got so close, judging me for my ketchup hatred, that’s why, when he smiled at me. That’s all.

 

*

 

My favorite days were Wednesdays and Fridays because they were my painting days, and my painting professor was a complete ass. He walked from student to student, his hands clasped behind his back; he had a still life set up on either side of the classroom, and he had directed us to just... paint it. Paint it how we thought we should, because don’t worry, he would most certainly tell us what we were doing wrong.

He didn’t say a word to me. The entire three hours. It drove me insane, because I couldn’t tell if that was really good or really bad. I painted for the first two hours, but the oils needed to dry before I could start on the next layer of color, so I took out my sketchbook. When the professor passed by my easel again, frowning through his thick beard, he barely stopped to look at my painting. He looked at my sketchbook, he looked at me, then walked away. Nothing. 

Whatever. I knew I was good, one of the best in the class, and he could say or not say whatever he wanted. But he couldn’t deny it.

I was done drawing crappy old vases on blankets; I drew hands. I’m addicted to hands. It was therapeutic just drawing them, they were the most interesting part of a person. They’re the most technically challenging part too. You get an arm anatomically correct, so what? I want to see the hands. And I could do it, too. I had whole sketchbooks filled with hands. 

I drew my professor’s hands, knobby and stubby and skilled. Then I drew the hands of the girl sitting next to me, her nails chewed down to the nub. And I drew another set from memory, with long fingers and freckles scattered across his knuckles. 

I only realized the last hour was up when everyone else started packing up their supplies. I only realized that my professor was standing over my shoulder when he spoke.

“Next time,” he said gruffly, “stop being a pussy. Draw the whole figure. You want to do it right? Pay attention to the whole body the way you pay attention to those hands.” 

“I-- uh-- sir?”

He turned on his heel and was gone, speaking with a different student. My eyes had gone so wide with surprise that it hurt, and I scowled.

He was right, though. Damn it.

I didn’t go to lunch, even though my stomach was growling. I headed across campus toward the library, determined to find all the books on drawing anatomy. I was going to sketch until either my hand fell off, or I proved my professor wrong. 

I stood in the middle of those stacks in the library, feeling free and secure at the same time, open and closed, alone and surrounded. 

I was more home here than I was anywhere else. Than I could ever be at my house with my family. I only ever felt this way when I was here, touching the thoughts and the notes and the ideas that artists had come up with before me. When I was here, or when I was in my dorm room with Marco. 

I could spend hours here and not notice. And that’s exactly what happened.

I had to run across campus to make it to my art history class on time. My heart was pumping, but it would have been going double-time anyway. This class was what I was good at, I was gonna kick ass. Hell yeah. And I was the only freshman in there, so that made me a big threat; a junior could call me out right in the middle of class, I could fight him right there, get punched in the face and still get a better grade than him. HELL yeah. And I was going to see Marco for the first time since this morning, HELL -- yeah, you get the point.

He was already there when I got into the lecture hall, hunched over his sketchbook in the second row of desks. I sat down next to him, dumping my backpack at my feet and catching my breath. “Hey dude.”

Marco looked up, his big brown eyes wide with confusion... Then he snapped his sketchbook shut and swiped it off his desk so it fell next to his stuff on the floor. 

I sat back in my chair and gave him a weird look.

“Hi,” he said, sounding breathless. “You, uh-- hey.”

He looked nervous. Marco wasn’t a nervous guy. He was the calm one, he made me calm. I mean, I’d only known him for two weeks, but we had that weird roommate intimacy thing going, didn’t we? And I hadn’t seen him look like that once yet. 

Was he nervous about me? What, did he not want to talk to me anymore, did he think I was an asshole? Was ketchup really that important to him, I didn’t--

Be cool, Kirschtein. Be cool, I swear to god.

“What’s up with you?” I asked, nonchalant.

Marco shook his head, and the nervous expression was gone. “I’ve been spacing out all day, that’s it. How was painting?”

We talked, hushed, until the hall was half full and the teacher started passing papers out along the rows. Shooting the shit, normal, like we always talked, like we were this morning, nothing wrong, nothing different.

The entire time, I just kept forcefully reminding myself to buy ketchup for my mini fridge later. Whatever it took to make him not nervous about me.

The quizzes on the last two weeks of subject we’d covered landed on my desk. I handed them to Marco and wrote my name on the top of my paper, pulling a pen out of my pocket. 

It was easy for me. I finished the questions on the front without a problem and flipped over to the back.

Marco glanced sideways at me, chewing the end of his pen.

The hefty intimidation tactic of being the first guy in the room to finish the first page of a quiz usually got me going. But I didn’t want Marco to be intimidated, and I saw the vague worried look in his eyes when they flickered back to his own paper.

Was that what he was nervous about? The quiz? He was intelligent as shit, and he could breeze through these things. It couldn’t be that.

I reached out my leg and nudged his foot with mine. 

“Cheater,” I hissed.

Marco looked up in surprise. “Wh-- no--”

I smirked at him. When he realized I was joking, the corner of his lips turned up, and he lowered his eyes to the paper. I accidentally caught the professor’s eyes and quickly did the same, finishing the questions on the back without a problem. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket, but I didn’t dare answer it with the professor watching me.

I glanced over at Marco again when I was finished. He kept flipping the page back and forth, and he hunched himself over it, nose hovering inches away from the desk, frowning in concentration. The end of his pen was in his mouth again, and the long fingers of his free hand drummed, absentminded, against the desk.

I was right. There were freckles on his knuckles.

When he was finally satisfied with his answers, Marco sat back in his chair and rolled his shoulders, the muscles tensing and relaxing under his black Spiderman t-shirt. He cracked his knuckles, satisfied, then looked up and caught me staring at him.

I raised my eyebrows, surprised.

He raised his too, then turned in his chair to look around him... behind him. Then he looked back at me, confused.

“What?” I whispered.

Marco smiled slightly. “Where is she?”

“Huh?”

“Where’s the coffee lady?”

He wasn’t making sense. I frowned. “What do you mean?”

Marco’s smile wavered. “You only get that look when you see the coffee lady, I thought...”

What? No. What was he... No. Fuck. What? 

“I was just wondering if I could get coffee before my dad gets here,” I whispered hastily.

I don’t know what I was wondering. I don’t know. I don’t know.

“If you’re done,” the professor said sharply, “you can go.”

We both stood up, passing our papers in to her and bee-lining for the exit. 

My phone started buzzing again in my pocket. Shit. My dad had left me eight messages already. 

“What’s up?” Marco asked, looping his thumbs through the straps of his backpack, pulling it on his shoulders. 

I sighed. “My dad’s already fucking here, he says he’s waiting at the dorm.” 

“Oh. No coffee, then,” he said lightly.

We started walking towards that direction, my eyes trained on the screen, going through all the texts my dad had sent me, French and English. I slid the phone screen up to open the keyboard underneath and started typing --

Marco took the phone out of my hands, scrolling as he walked.

“Wait -- is this French?” he asked.

“Yeah -- Gimme that back, you punk ass--”

“Shush,” he told me, chuckling. “I’m giving you my number. You’re going to need someone to rant to this weekend. You speak French?”

I was dazed. My brain felt sluggish. I had been preparing myself for a weekend of no contact with him, with anyone here. Sitting at home, rotting on my mother’s designer couch.

“Yeah,” I said finally. “My dad grew up in Paris, my grandmother’s from France, so he taught me and my brothers.”

Marco sent himself a text with my phone, then slid it closed and handed it back to me. “Say something in French.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it and swallowed hard. 

My dad’s car was parked right outside our dorm, and there he was, leaning back against the door with his arms crossed over his chest. Waiting for me. His phone in his hand. 

“Dad,” I called as we drew closer. 

Please don’t say anything, please don’t--

“Réponds au téléphone, Jean.” My dad’s voice was level and calm, and he straightened up from the car. But he’d said it in French. Answer your phone, Jean.

Fuck.

“I just got out of class,” I started. “Sorry--”

My dad glanced at Marco, then back at me. “Français.” French.

Shit.

“Mon cours vient de se terminer il y a cinq minutes... Il y a un problème?” I asked, frowning. My class ended five minutes ago. What’s wrong?

Marco’s head snapped up, and I could feel his eyes on me.

Not now, man, I thought violently, just don’t say anything. I hated speaking a different language in front of anyone, let alone my roommate, but I was glad. If my dad was going to make a homophobic comment, at least Marco wouldn’t understand.

“Es-tu prêt?” My dad said calmly. “Ta mère te veut de retour à la maison.” Are you ready? Your mother wants you home.

“I just have to go up to my room,” I replied. 

My dad looked at Marco. Just looked at him.

Marco kept his cool, smiling and holding out his hand to my dad. “Hi, I’m Marco, I’m Jean’s roommate.”

There was no way that my father was going to be rude, he was polite to a fault. He shook Marco’s hand. “A pleasure.” And he said it in English too.

It didn’t feel like a pleasure, it felt annoyed, but maybe just to me.

Marco looked at me, his brown eyes warm and confident... but wide. Wider than normal. 

“I’m gonna go meet the girls up for dinner,” he said. “Have a good weekend, man, I’ll see you.” 

“I-- yeah.” I nodded, vague. “Yeah, see you.”

And then he was gone, and it was just my dad and I standing there on the sidewalk. I waited for it.

“Qui est-ce?” He said quietly. Who is he?

“My roommate, Dad.” I said in English. “He’s one of my good friends.”

He didn’t say anything. He was good at that. I shook my head, shifting my backpack from one shoulder to the other. Sighing like I was sixteen again.

“Just let me get my stuff.” I turned away, heading for the door without letting him respond. 

I stood in the doorway of my bedroom longer than I should have. Just doing nothing. Preparing myself. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to.

Some clothes, my laptop, phone charger. My sketchbook, but nothing else, I would get all my homework done when I got back Sunday night. I stuffed it all in my duffel bag.

Could I bring my friends with me? Could I stuff the car with all the things I loved from here and bring it home, to make the weekend a little less shitty?

I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket again, and I took a while to check it, figuring that it would be my dad. I wanted another long second of soaking in my dorm room, my comfort here, every good feeling from the last two weeks. Only then did I answer it.

It wasn’t my dad. 

I opened the text message.

**M: please teach me French right now.**

I smiled. At least I could bring him with me.

 

*

 

I texted Marco so much my mom actually noticed. She lectured me about it, too. The phone bill, the cost, the utter lack of effort I put into bonding with my family. This was one of the most poignant parts of my life, you know, and I should be spending time with my parents.

I still texted him, whatever. My mom had an assistant for fuck’s sake, she never touched the phone bills with her own hands; and when my mom “scheduled” lunch with me on Saturday and then had to cancel, it was the assistant that I ended up going to a fancy cafe with. Her name was Phoebe, and she had been around since I was 8; I actually had fun when I hung out with her.

Neither one of my brothers was home, and most of my buddies from high school were away at college. If they were home for the weekend, I didn’t want to see them. I wanted to be back at school. I wanted to be with my friends for the weekend. I wanted to hang out with Marco. Texting him was the closest thing I had. 

I don’t know what the hell we found to talk about almost constantly for 48 hours, but we found something. I don’t know. 

He sent me pictures: the sketch he was getting done for his homework, a slice of pizza from Mina’s, a bottle of ketchup he kept moving variously around my side of the room. He put it on my pillow, damn him.

We talked about dumb things. We kind of talked about everything. He got me to talk because he wouldn’t talk unless I reciprocated. So I did. 

It was Saturday night, and I was in, but both of my parents were out. I wandered along the hallway of the second floor of my house, padding along in an even pace on the hardwood floors in my long ass soccer socks, slipping occasionally because I was too busy looking at my phone.

**M: i dunno if i want to be a teacher, or illustrate full time. sometimes i just want to open a shop or something. coffee, or art supplies, or books. idk**

J: you’d have to talk to people..

**M: that’s the point bro lol, i like that**

J: figures. But at least you have a plan.

**M: You have a plan. Paint forever, make shitloads of money, famous for life**

J: lol. i don’t think that’s as promising as my parents are looking for from me.

**M: what could be ‘more promising’ than u just being happy...**

J: oldest brother is a surgeon, middle brother is a lawyer. lol.

**M: u would make a good lawyer u could just scowl at everyone lol**

J: thanks.   J: damn it i just fell on my ass again. why did you make me put these stupid socks on you nerd

**M: what’s the french for “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH”**

J: oh my fucking god. Tu peux pas gérer la vérité 

**M: so cool.**

J: X)

I don’t know what the fuck that smiley face thing meant, I don’t know, whatever. I got off the floor and wandered into my brother’s room -- Emile’s, because Olivier had moved out a year ago and his room was a mini-gym or something now. Emile never came back anymore either, he had a whole new apartment full of flat screen TVs and minimalist couches. Whatever was left in his room here was as good as sitting in storage. 

That’s when I saw it. The old box set television sitting on his dresser, and his PS2 balanced on a tall stack of games. If I took it back with me, no one would notice.

I took a picture of the TV and sent it to Marco.

J: want?

He responded within a minute.

**M: I LOVE YOU.**

I grinned like an idiot. Hours of video games and ridiculousness were in my close future, and I couldn’t fucking wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> interpretation of the look on Jean's face in the art history class is up to you *ridiculous wink*
> 
> Huge thanks and appreciation to polkadotted-cherries and heyelsi for help with the French!!  
> 
> thank you everyone for being really wonderful and supportive and awesome and asjdhskfjhs thanks for reading!


	4. Into The Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm just a normal boy / that sank when I fell overboard... / I'm sinking to the bottom of my / everything that freaks me out... / I want to swim away but don't know how / sometimes it feels just like I'm falling in the ocean... / I thought of just your face."
> 
> \- Blue October, "Into the Ocean"

It was twenty four hours. That’s it. That’s all.

Nothing happened. Not really. It was normal. It was nothing.

It changed everything.

But that’s how I am. Once I start, I can’t stop.

Twenty four hours.

 

*

 

12:24 PM

“Are you guys even alive right now?”

A shadow hovered over the insides of my eyelids; I frowned and opened one eye, not lifting my head from the table where Marco and I had collapsed in the dining hall.

Eren stood over us, setting his tray of lunch down slowly next to me, trying not to laugh. I tugged my beanie down, covering my eyes, and didn’t respond.

“I don’t know.” Marco’s voice was muffled across the opposite side of the table from me. He’d put his head down, too. “I can’t tell anymore.”

“What happened?” Eren asked, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

“Jean Kirschtein happened,” Marco mumbled.

Ha. I straightened up in my chair and tugged my beanie back off my face, smirking so hard I thought my face would start to hurt. 

“He’s just mad because he blows at Call of Duty,” I told Eren. “I brought my brother’s old TV back a few days ago, and I beat his ass.”

I poked Marco’s elbow, triumphant, not wanting him to miss the disgusting smugness oozing from me. “Beat his ass” was an understatement. Ha.

“It doesn’t even count. I’ve never played COD before,” Marco said, opening one eye and peering up at me, looking grumpy. He poked me back, the touch of his finger light on my wrist, then he burrowed his face into the crook of his arms again, determined to nap through our lunch break.

“I’m so sorry,” Eren said to Marco through a mouthful of french fries. “How late did you stay up?”

“Three in the morning,” I said proudly. I poked Marco in retaliation, right at the top of his bowed head where the dark hair stood up in a cowlick because he hadn’t washed it this morning. He’d just rolled right out of bed and kinda thrown clothes on before going to class. He made a muffled sound of surprise, and I smiled. “Grandpa Marco over here can’t handle a late night.”

“Weak.” Eren’s voice lifted in excitement. “What’s your kill/death ratio, man?”

“3.0,” I replied... 

Oh no.

Eren was grinning at me. Too proud. Too poorly disguised. Oh no. I didn’t want to ask, but I had to -- Please don’t be better at COD than me--

“What’s yours?” I could barely keep from gritting my teeth.

“6.0,” he replied.

God damn it, Eren.

“Play him,” Marco whimpered. “Make him play until 3 AM, he’s good.”

“Shut up,” I told him. “We’re gonna play until you get a good ratio. You’re good, you just die too much. Holy shit--” I turned to Eren “--this kid, in his very first round, this kid runs right in the fucking middle of a pack of guys, pretty much the entire other team. And they blow him fuckin’ sky high, but you know why he ran in there? You know what the logic was for that one?”

“Jean,” Marco groaned.

Eren’s expression was horrified. “What the hell?”

“He thought there was a cat walking around in the arena.” I cracked up. “He wanted to see if he could pet the goddamned cat.”

Eren nearly spat out his drink.

Marco uncovered his face and rested his chin on his arm. “There’s butterflies programmed into the game, aren’t there? I just felt bad. By the time I figured out it wasn’t a cat, it was just ammo someone dropped, I was finished.”

He poked me back, the most considerate and gentle revenge poke ever, right at the tip of my finger where my hand was splayed palm flat on the table’s surface.

“Holy shit.” Eren was laughing. “I want to play with you now, Marco, we can take a nice walk with a sniper rifle and appreciate the nature.”

I laughed too, and even though he wrinkled his nose, Marco smiled up at me.

There was a flurry of movement behind Eren, and a backpack dropped heavily in the seat next to Marco’s; I recognized the blonde hair, and when Armin had slid his coat off his shoulders and thrown it over his seat, I raised my hand in greeting.

“Hi guys,” Armin said, out of breath. “I’m starving, you getting food?”

“Go ahead,” I told him. “I have to scrape this idiot off the linoleum.”

Marco had buried his face in his arm again. He mumbled something unintelligible.

When Armin nodded and left for the server lines, I poked Marco in the arm.

“Hey. Come get food.”

“Mmm.”

“Huh?”

“Mm-mm.”

“You gotta eat.”

“I can’t sleep.. eat... same time.” 

“I’ll let you wear my hat,” I offered, coaxing. I just didn’t want to go up to the food line alone, and Armin wasn’t the same as going with Marco, and... whatever.

Marco peeped up at me again with both eyes, the tip of his nose just visible over the sleeve of his sweatshirt. They widened at me, those eyes--

Eyes like earth. Eyes like whiskey, eyes like the burnt umber oil paint I hoarded and only used for good paintings.

I felt my face start to blush under his gaze, and raised my eyebrows at him. Wondering if I should have made the offer, if it sounded too...

Shut up. Shut it.

Marco sat up. “You’re really going to give me the Forced-Positivity-Motivational-Fuck-Yeah Jean beanie?”

“I think you need it more than I do,” I pointed out smugly.

“Good call.”

I took the beanie off and tossed it across the table to him... Ah shit, my hair must look ridiculous right now. I raked my fingers through it, trying not to look like I cared.

Marco tugged the hat on, his dumb, thick, dark hair sticking out whichever way it pleased. So funny.

“Pull it back a little.” I gestured with my hand, smiling slightly.

He did, until it freed more of his hair in the front, sitting back on his head all cool-looking with his hair like that, and the red with the warmth of his skin tone...

Marco scowled at me suddenly, eyes narrowing, one eyebrow arching.

“Am I you yet, or what?” he growled, his voice low... then he chuckled to himself, and his face broke into his normal smile.

I laughed slightly. “Not even close. You’re too cute.”

And then I realized what I’d said.

Deer in the fucking headlights, man.

“I-- I--” I was blushing so hard I think my hair went ginger for a minute there. I stared at the table. “I didn’t mean it like that, you’re just always -- nice, and I’m -- you couldn’t do it, the bitchy face, because-- you... I just..”

Jesus fuck, I was just digging this hole deeper and deeper.

“You know what I mean,” I grumbled finally, rubbing the back of my neck. “We don’t -- It’s just... you know what I mean.”

Marco was fighting a smile, his eyes still wide with... surprise? Mockery?

I wanted to fucking evaporate into thin air.

I was so suddenly aware of everything, of Marco’s hands on the table, of Eren ignoring us for the rapid fire of text messages he was getting from Mikasa, of all the other students sitting around us eating, talking, probably overhearing me calling a dude cute--

It’s fine. Friends can think their friends are cute, right? Friends can say so. The whole point of friendship is to support and compliment them, isn’t it? I mean, I wouldn’t really know. But Marco was cute, god damn it, he was handsome as hell, and he was intelligent and talented and hilarious and he wouldn’t stop looking at me like that with those eyes and he was my bro and a bro can point these things out about his bro. A bro can be proud to another bro’s... bro.

He was my bro.

Holy shit, I had been using that word so often in the last few days that it didn’t even sound like a real word anymore.

Was it a real word to begin with?

I had all these thoughts in the flux of a moment; it felt like it lasted years, because he was looking at me like that.

“Uh-huh,” was all Marco said, finally, getting up. “Let’s go get food.”

So that’s what we did. I trailed after him, silently thanking him for not dragging it out. It’s ok. He doesn’t think anything of it, otherwise he would have said something, right? He’s my bro. Whatever.

Marco talked so easily. Asking me if I wanted to go to Mina’s tonight, walking alongside me as we shuffled down the line for lunch. Groaning and accepting when I challenged him to more COD later. Making me promise that it would only be for a while, because we both had homework. We ate lunch with Armin and Eren, talking about the game, talking about whatever. And I was comfortable again, lulled by his easiness, like nothing had ever happened. 

When 12:30 rolled around and we both had to go for our 12:45 classes, Marco and I left the dining hall together. 

“I have to present my work so far to the class,” I was explaining, the thick roll of paper that was my homework under my arm. “Not just for a critique, I mean presenting... Concept, future plans, shit like that.”

“You look like you’re carrying the Declaration of Independence,” Marco chuckled. “And you’ll be ok. Pretend you’re Nicholas Cage.”

I snorted. “I mean, even if I fuck up, I know what I need to say, so I’m just gonna say it, and whatever.”

“You’re going to do fine. Just do yourself a favor and don’t stutter like you did at lunch,” Marco added lightly, “or else everyone will think you’re too cute, and they won’t be able to pay attention to what you’re saying.”

I looked up at him, startled.

“I’m going this way,” he continued, “I’ll see you tonight. Good luck!”

And then Marco was gone before I had the chance to reply, heading across the street with his back to me, backpack slung casually on one shoulder, the sleeves of his long-sleeve shirt pushed up to his elbows. 

He was still wearing my beanie.

 

*

 

2:15 PM

You ever just walk through your day reeling wildly between being totally alright, and freaking the fuck out? That was today. And I wasn’t even panicking about the presentation I had to give, or the mountain of homework waiting for me later tonight.

I sat in the 2D room in the studio building, trying and failing to focus on organizing the work I had to present. Whatever, I would breeze through the presentation; I’d dealt with worse, and been less prepared. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t focus, that my thoughts kept wandering away.

What did he mean, cute?

Was he calling me cute?

I mean-- I didn’t mean to call him cute.

But he called me cute?

Bros call each other cute. Whatever.

He probably didn’t think anything of it.

I mean, he probably called everyone else cute.

I was sitting in my 2D class mulling over the boundaries of male friendship and the consequences of neglecting my homework for Call of Duty when the teacher called my name... and suddenly I was moving towards the front of the huge studio classroom, all my artwork for the semester so far in my arms. Sweat started beading on my forehead as I hung up my drawings with tacks at the front of the class and stood back, waiting for the critique and presentation to begin.

And... I had completely forgotten what I was supposed to say.

Blank. Nada. Nothing came to mind. Someone asked me what medium I used for the biggest piece, and I couldn’t even tell them that. Keep in mind that the whole class was based on collage and pencil drawings, so that’s what everything was made with.

Christ on a fucking cracker. 

I wondered if this was cute.

 

* 

 

2:47 PM

**J: I fucked it up man.**

M: ur presentation?

**J: I forgot what I was going to say, so I started making shit up... And then one of the juniors in my class called me out on it... I don’t fuckin know**

M: where are you right now?

**J: still in class.**

M: 2D? On the third floor?

**J: yeah.**

I kept my phone on my thigh under the table, shielding the light of the screen with the palm of my hand, typing with one finger to try and be subtle. Someone else was giving their presentation already, and my face burned when I realized they had notecards. Why didn’t I fucking think to write down any of my ideas? Why hadn’t I planned on the possibility that I would get up there and everything would fly right out of my head?

That almost never happened. I knew how to speak in front of people. I could do it well, god damn it. I don’t know what was up with me, but I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight today. I hoped my teacher graded on the work and not the statements, because mine had been a mess.

Marco didn’t text me back immediately like he had been before, and I shoved my phone in my pocket, avoiding the eyes of the people sitting around me. I was so embarrassed by my shit presentation I didn’t know if I wanted to interrupt and go give the whole thing over again, or just never come back to this class...

Why was he asking me if I was still in class? He was in Digital Illustration on the other side of campus. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. 

The next person -- a girl named Hannah, from my year -- got up to give her presentation, and started it with a poem her boyfriend had written.

Ok, my presentation skills can’t have been that shitty.

But still.

This is why I paint. I don’t host meetings. I’m not a communications major.

This is why my art is ridiculous, because I can never tell if it’s really important and meaningful to me or just something that comes out of my hands, and I gouge meaning out of it for class. What does it really mean if I can’t explain it to a class without forgetting what it meant, because I got a random mental image of Marco this afternoon at lunch?

Oh Christ, here I was, sitting in the middle of a prerequisite class, questioning my entire existence and value as an artist. 

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I tried to pry it out of my jeans without being noticeable. Hannah was still reading the poem.

**M: come outside.**

What-- I looked up at the doorway of the classroom, craning my neck to see through the narrow window in the door. 

I could see his shoulder, hovering in the hallway, just out of sight. I could tell it was him, though. 

I waited for the right break in the critique, when the conversation was more engaged and no one was paying attention to me. Then I slipped from my stool in the back and went out into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind me.

“Marc-- agh!”

He yanked me by a fistful of my sweatshirt into the empty classroom next door.

“Shh,” he told me, letting go of me and reaching into his back pocket.

“I thought you were in class right now,” I said, hushed.

“I am,” Marco replied, smiling down at me. “I took a break. You needed this.”

He had my red beanie in his hand. The Forced-Positivity-Motivational-Fuck-Yeah Jean beanie.

For a minute, I couldn’t say anything.

He had made an excuse and ran out of one of his favorite classes just to come all the way over here for nothing. To give me this. To make me feel better. His cheeks were flushed pink from the cold breeze outside.

“No matter how bad your presentation went,” Marco said gently, “it’s Monday, and everything is worse on a Monday. Universally. It’s the teacher’s fault for having a crit on a Monday. Put it on.”

I wanted to hug him.

I took the beanie from him and tugged it on, wiping the hair off my forehead underneath it. 

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“On a scale of one to ten,” he said, “how bad was it?”

I thought about it for a moment. It felt like ten, but if I said ten then he would do that thing he did when he was worried, the edge of his mouth always tugging down.

“Six,” I said finally. “Five if you don’t count the fact that one of my pieces fell off the wall in the middle of it.”

“Five,” Marco said with a smile. “Not bad at all. You survived.”

“Yeah, unlike you when we play COD tonight.”

“There you go. Spend the rest of the class coming up with ways to make me actually good at that game.” He glanced at the clock hung on the wall. “I have to go back to class...”

I didn’t know what to say; the words were stuck in my throat, caught somewhere between another threat over Call of Duty and a soaring feeling in my chest that made me feel light-headed. 

Relief. It was just relief.

“Thank you,” I said finally, quietly.

“You ok?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Ok. I’ll see you later.” Marco started to go... then turned back to me, looking like he was about to say something.

I looked up at him, frowning, wondering if he was reconsidering...

I don’t know what.

Reconsidering being my friend. Stealing my hat. Staying here with me, and just hanging out for the rest of the day in here, talking low and telling stupid jokes and pretending we didn’t have class.

Marco reached up and tugged the beanie down over my eyes. “Stop thinking so much. Everything will be fine.”

I was in the middle of grumbling swear words at him and trying to fix my hat when I heard him laughing, heading out the door, gone.

If anyone in my class noticed when I came back with a hat I didn’t have before, then nobody said anything. I kept turning red, feeling conspicuous, but then I realized...

I didn’t care.

Every so often I’d turn my head and catch a whiff of Marco’s shower soap from the hat.

 

*

 

6:40 PM

He was already at Mina’s when I got there, sitting in the booth we always took, his sketchbook open in front of him.

I just stood in the doorway for a minute, waiting.

Marco’s whole body reacted whenever he was drawing. Normally he was so laid-back, calm and steady, but when he bowed himself over his sketchbook, it was different. He was inches from the paper, turning it with his left hand as he needed to while the right hand worked. His whole body-- it wasn’t just his wrist and his fingers, it was his whole arm and the shift in his shoulders, the arch of his back when he dragged the pencil across the page. 

His eyes were always so warm, but now they were heated, focused, intense--

The way he looked at his sketchbook. Like there was nothing else. 

Marco’s quiet, hardy passion threw me for a fucking loop. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

“Hey Jean!” the waitress behind the counter waved to me, and I recognized Hannah, the poem girl from my class earlier.

Ugh. Like I needed a reminder of that. I tugged my beanie farther on my hair and raised my hand in a wave.

Marco’s head jerked up at my name, and he snapped his sketchbook shut immediately. He’d already stowed it away in his backpack by the time I sat down across from him, throwing my keys and wallet on the table.

“Drawing porn again?” I asked mildly.

His face went bright red immediately. “What-- I-- no.”

I laughed. “You’re blushing like a motherfucker. Did you already order?”

“No. And I’m not drawing porn--” 

“Yeah, ok.”

Marco buried his face in his hands and groaned. 

“Wait--” I couldn’t help but laugh, reaching across the table and pulling his hands away from his face. “I can’t handle how fucking red you are right now.”

Marco wrinkled his nose at me, smiling at me despite himself. “God damn you.”

A beat too late, I let go of his hands, shoving mine in the pockets of my hoodie.

“Are you ever gonna show me your sketchbook?” I asked.

He redirected. “What do you want to get? Pizza, or calzones?”

“Whatever makes you blush like that again. Holy shit.”

“Pizza. Or calzones.”

“I can’t hear you over all the dicks in your sketchbook.”

Marco slapped a hand to his forehead and laughed. “Oh my god. Shut up.”

“Make me.”

 

*

 

5:08 AM

Is that right?

Marco’s clock flashed from across the room. 5:08. My vision was blurry, and the numbers were sideways. I was... lying down on the floor.

It was dark, but soft early sunlight slipped through the blinds on the window. Strips of light fell across the floor, across my feet and the comforter wrapped around me.

My heart was pounding hard like it always did when I woke up.

Take a breath. Calm down. Retrace your steps.

Marco and I had come back from Mina’s with our food. We’d pulled our dorky matching comforters onto the floor in front of my TV, then turned all the lights off so the only thing illuminating the room was the frazzled screen and Call of Duty. 

We were only going to play for a few hours, but then it was midnight and we were still going, and neither of us had remembered our homework, and now...

I could hear my heartbeat hammering in my ear. And then I heard another one. Fainter, slower; a calm, steady rhythm. I could feel it, too, against my cheek.

I was on the floor, tangled in the blankets where we’d fallen asleep. Both of us.

My head was on Marco’s chest. It was his heartbeat in my ear.

My arm was thrown half around his waist, legs tangled around his through the comforters... Marco held me to him, one arm wrapped around my shoulders. We moved together to the measure of his deep, sleepy breath, his chest rising and falling underneath me. 

I didn’t move.

Every excuse I’d made in the last few days echoed in my ears. Normal dudes. Friends. Bros. 

I stayed where I was.

He smelled like... paper. Like opening a new sketchbook, like carrying around your favorite novel. And oil paint, and shower soap, and... Marco. I’d smelled it only in passing before, in my red beanie or across the room, but this heady.

He smelled like how it feels to come home after a long day.

I nuzzled my face into his chest and breathed deeply. Until my ragged breath matched his. Until my pulse steadied. His heart calmed my heart.

Marco startled me when he sighed. I lifted my head and looked up at him; his eyelashes were fluttering open. He looked back at me, drowsy and calm, still half-asleep.

“Hi,” he mumbled softly.

His hair was a mess. And his hand trailed down my shoulders before he let go of me. And he was just looking at me with those eyes.

My hands were shaking. And then I was shaking.  
“Hey...” Marco whispered, sitting up with his weight on one elbow. “Hey, no...”

He could tell I was panicking, but he wasn’t helping, he was making my chest tight, and he was moving closer to me--

I scrambled away from him, throwing the blankets off. Too rough. I left him on the floor and turned away.

“We fell asleep.” My voice was hoarse. “I fell asleep, playing-- I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Jean, what are you sorry for?”

I rubbed my face hard, grounding my palms into my eyelids. I didn’t answer. 

“Bro?” Marco said softly.

Bro. Bro. Bro.

I just stood there, staring at nothing.

Then a hand, light on my shoulder. I turned around and Marco looked at me shyly, biting his lip, holding out one of the comforters.

“We’ve still got a couple of hours,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

The way the light from the window hit his eyes.

I took the blanket without a word. Marco climbed into his bed and burrowed into the other comforter, asleep again within minutes.

 

*

 

6:27 AM

He had given me the wrong comforter.

By the time I’d gotten into my bed and buried my face in the blanket, Marco was already asleep. There was no way I could have given it back to him, not without explaining why it was such a big deal.

It was like falling asleep in him. The smell of the comforter filled me up, my head and my lungs.

I couldn’t stay in the same room with him. I couldn’t trust myself to stay under that blanket any longer, because I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from getting out of my bed and crawling in with Marco.

I’d nuzzled my face into the real thing, and the comforter that kind of smelled like him was second rate. So I left. The showers were deserted this early in the morning, so I could be alone.

I sat my bare ass down on the grimy-looking tiled floor of the shower stall. I didn’t care how gross it was. I pulled my knees to my chest and let the water run over me until I could breathe again. 

I just thought. I thought about everything. Until it made sense.

I came clean.

Excuse the shower pun.

I just wasn’t going to lie to myself anymore. I could lie to everyone else, that was fine, but if Marco had given me anything, it was strength in myself.

I was telling myself the truth. And I was starting here on the floor of the shower at six in the morning.

I liked Marco so much it made me dizzy.

I don’t know when it started. When I started seeing it.

The way he smiled at me. The way he came to find me when he knew that I was flipping my shit, regardless of where he was or what he was doing. Just to make me feel better. The fact that he knew how to do that.

I liked his hands. I liked his long ass legs. I liked the way he never made a joke at anyone else’s expense. I liked his toes. I liked his laugh. I liked the way he stopped to try and protect animated cats in the middle of a war game. I liked his stupid hair and his freckles and I liked everything.

He was my best friend. The best friend I’d ever had, who teased me and talked to me about everything. Who respected when I couldn’t bring myself to talk about anything. I’d never met anyone I’d fit so well with. I’d never met anyone who liked me even when there was nothing to like. I would never run out of things to like about him.

I didn’t panic. I just acknowledged it. There was no fucking denying it.

This was different. He made it different. Marco made it feel right, because nothing that Marco did would ever feel wrong.

This wasn’t me sitting next to the hot captain of the baseball team in math class in seventh grade. This wasn’t my parents using the word ‘gay’ like a slur. This wasn’t me keeping my eyes glued to the floor every time I changed in a locker room full of my soccer team in high school. It all fell away; it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to search for approval from anyone, because I wasn’t going to say anything. Especially to Marco.

My world had shrunk. I didn’t worry about being gay and what it would mean; I just worried about one person. And there was no way I would ever tell him There was no way in hell I was going to risk my friendship with him for my pathetic feelings.

He called me bro. He was my friend. And that’s what he expected of me: a friend, a roommate, a person he could ask for help with homework, an idiot to play video games with. That’s all. 

I felt like I was betraying him. Every minute that I savored with him, memorizing every time I’d touched him. And all he wanted to be was my friend.

He’d asked me what I was sorry for. Why I kept apologizing before.

I’m sorry that I held you for longer than I should have. I’m sorry that I know what your heart sounds like now, because I’m never going to let that go. I’m sorry for taking a wonderful friendship and making it a fucking John Hughes movie.

I sat in that shower until my fingers pruned. Until I decided how to deal with it.

 

*

 

7:05 AM

I’ll tell you right fucking now how I decided to deal with it. I avoided him, like the weak loser that I am.

I got dressed and went to breakfast way too early without him. He could go to breakfast by himself -- I took my coffee and my supplies and headed for the painting classroom, determined to get some of my abandoned homework done.

I was going to do it more gracefully. Put this space between us, give myself some time to relearn how to talk to him without looking at every part of him.

But how do you sit across the table from someone and call them ‘bro’ when you know what they look like when they just wake up and smile at you?

I left my phone on silent, too.

 

*

 

8:25 AM

**M: did u go to class already...?  
** M: where are you dude?  


 

*

 

10:56 AM

**M: Are you alright??**

 

*

 

12:02 PM

**J: not going to lunch. Playing soccer with Eren on quad.**

There. That’s all I would say to him. That’s it. I threw my phone with my stuff in the grass.

Running helped. Trailing up and down the field with Eren, trying to wrestle the soccer ball from under his feet. It helped. I didn’t have to think, I just had to focus on beating the shit out of Jaeger.

The kid moved fast. He was weaving in and out between my legs, kicking the ball away before I even had the chance to tell which direction he was coming from. The rubber soles of our sneakers kept sliding in the damp grass. Eren used it to his advantage; every time I got the ball he would come skidding by, his heels digging in the earth, moving his feet just right--

“Fuck!” I yelled when he took the ball again.

“Eren laughed over his shoulder. “C’mon, man!”

“I’m gonna--” I came at him again, knocking the ball away and sprinting down the field. It felt so good to get my legs pumping--

Eren nearly body-checked me, half slamming his shoulder into my back, twisting and getting the ball.

“Ha!”

“God damn it!”

Students were trickling from the doors of the sculpture studio that stood next to the quad, everyone heading for the dining hall for lunch, but we kept playing. Eren was twisting me in circles, making me sweat, getting the ball easily, damn him. Finally I wrestled it away with a rusty high school technique, hell yeah--

“Hey look,” Eren called. “Marco’s here.”

“Huh?”

Eren kicked the ball out from under me so swiftly that I slipped on the damp turf and fell flat on my ass. The sky was spinning above me, and I closed my eyes, face turning red with embarrassment.

A shadow drifted across my eyelids, and when I looked up, he was there.

“At least you’re not dead,” Marco said, standing over me.

I groaned.

Marco held a hand out to pull me up, but I got up by myself. Rubbing the back of my neck, I caught sight of Eren holding the ball under his arm and approaching us with a grin.

“Hey, I was telling the truth, wasn’t I?” he said, laughing.

I was just happy for an excuse not to talk to Marco right now. I knew he would ask me if I was ok, and I’m a shitty liar. I didn’t want to deal with that right now.

“Game on,” I growled at Eren.

“Game right the fuck on,” he replied gleefully. “But game on in like ten minutes, I’m tired, man.”

Marco and Eren both flopped down in the grass, and I sat down between them, ignoring Marco’s hands abandoning his backpack and twisting in the grass.

I should talk to him. I should ask him what’s up. I should act like nothing is different.

“Hey, you seen Armin?” Eren asked him.

Marco shook his head. “Nope, not yet today. Usually I see him when my class ends, but I got kinda... sidetracked.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Sidetracked? What, did you get lost?”

God, that sounded way too mean. Nailed it. Fuck.

Marco’s face went pink. “I, uh... I kinda got asked out on a date.”

I stared at him.

“Who asked you?” Eren piped up.

“Thomas Wagner,” said Marco. “You probably know him, he’s a junior. He’s a sculpture major.”

The blonde kid with the stupid sideburns who never had anything useful to say in critiques? He was in one of my liberal arts classes.

He’s taller than me.

“Oh, that dude is cool.” Eren nodded in approval.

“He was so nervous,” Marco chuckled. “I feel like I would have said yes no matter what. Just to put the poor kid out of his misery. He came over to talk to me this morning at breakfast since I was alone, but he couldn’t do it then, so he came and found me after class...”

“Stalker,” Eren said with a laugh.

“You said yes?” I asked suddenly.

Marco looked up at me. After a moment, he shrugged. “Why not? He likes me. He had the balls to ask. He’s single, I’m single-- I figured I should at least try. And hey, I’ve got a thing for blondes.”

I ran my hand through my fair, mousy hair and didn’t respond.

“Let us know if you need us to tail him or something,” Eren offered, getting up and nudging the soccer ball towards me with his foot. I got up immediately, and when Eren started to jog away, I went to follow--

“Jean?”

Slowly, I turned to look down at Marco.

“Are you alright?” he asked after a minute. “Did you get any of my texts, or..”

“Yeah. I got them.”

And then I left him there and jogged away.

I threw myself harder into playing after that, but it didn’t do me any good like it had before. Eren was fast, moving and slipping too quick for me. I was fouling him left and right but I didn’t care. It didn’t even make me feel better when I got the ball out from under him and made it to the other side of the field. 

When he got the ball away from me, it wasn’t even a particularly good move. I deserved it, I left my whole right side vulnerable. He had every right to take advantage and move in, I practically gave him the ball.

But I turned around and punched Eren right in the fucking face.

“Jean?!” Marco yelled from across the quad.

Eren stumbled back. Blood trickled from his nostril, and when he swiped the back of his hand across his nose and saw the red, I thought he would explode.

“What the fuck, dude!” he yelled. “What the fuck!”

He came flying at me, and I held up my arms to block, my fist still hurting--

Arms came around me from behind, wrapping around my shoulders and yanking me right the fuck back, knocking me off balance and jarring me out of the punch I was about to throw. 

Marco’s grip was too tight for me to fight.

“Fuckin’-- Get off!” I roared at him, trying to force my way away.

His voice was firm in my ear. “Punch me. You’re gonna punch anyone, then punch me, alright? Not Eren. Jesus Christ, Jean.”

The offer sounded nice. His lips brushed against the shell of my ear.

I ripped out of his grip, stumbling forward a few steps, my chest heaving. Eren was shrieking at me, an inch away from fucking fighting me right there, and I wanted to take that offer up, too. But all I could see was Marco, standing there waiting to grab me again, staring at me with this strange look on his face.

“Jean,” he said quietly. “What’s wrong? What the hell is going on?”

I just shook my head and muttered, “I’m gonna.. shower.”

And I strode away. Off the quad, leaving my soccer ball and my other shit in the grass. Heading towards my dorm, anger still washing through me.

Even when I’d crossed the street, I could feel his eyes on me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a poem by Jean Kirschtein: "How to Fall In Love With Someone And Then Utterly Fuck It Up (God Damn It I Fucked It Up)"
> 
> this chapter was really difficult because the entire time, Jean was Megara from Hercules and I was all five of the muses singing "Won't Say I'm In Love" and oh god why
> 
> thank you everyone for reading and patience and kindness <3


	5. Lungs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You should know that we're alone this time / keep yourself a secret, you should know that / I will sell you a future you don't want... / All the things you tell yourself / Offer no resolution... / Taking every chance to find solutions / that never make anyone happy... / Fill up your lungs with us."
> 
> \-- Chvrches, "Lungs"

I am crazy about you.

I fall more in love with you every day.

You fucking stupid tall freckly idiot.

“Marco?” asked my art history professor from the front of the class. “You have a question?”

Marco put down the hand that he had raised. “I was just wondering about the artists who trained formally before going into abstraction...”

The professor launched into her response and Marco leaned his chin in his left hand and listened intently, scribbling something down every so often with his right hand. Other students started taking notes, too -- the discussion of abstraction would probably be one of the open essays on the test next class.

I couldn’t focus. The open page of my notebook was still blank. I couldn’t stop staring at him out the corner of my eye. My head was starting to hurt from it. I didn’t care.

I am going crazy.

It’s been three weeks. Three weeks since I punched Eren in the face and you made me apologize. Three weeks since I woke up next to you. 

Three weeks since you started going out with Thomas. Three weeks since I could barely stand being in the same room as you.

If I had you, all I’d do is hurt you, so this is a good thing. It’s good that I don’t say anything. It’s good that you’re with Thomas. He can give you things I can’t.

It’s good. It’s a good thing.

Marco chewed on the end of his pen and nodded at what the teacher was saying.

I’m yours. I’ve been yours since the beginning. 

Zoning out so much made my head spin... I was dizzy, dizzy from him?

No. I’m not that much of a romantic lump of garbage. I was getting a cold, my head had been hurting like this all day. My nose was itching...

I sneezed. Loudly. A few people looked up at me, including Marco.

I scowled and stared down at my notebook, dragging my pen across the top of the paper like I was about to write something. Wiped my nose when he finally looked away, because I felt gross, but he didn’t need to know that I actually was gross.

I care more about what I look like to you than to anyone else.

I’m afraid that you’ll smile at me and say something casual -- how was class? Do you have homework? Want to watch a movie?

And I’ll slip. And I’ll forget. And I’ll reply something like “you’re incredible.”

Or how about “Jesus fucking Christ, please let me bend you over a table.”

Or maybe “I never gave you your comforter back.”

I should probably actually give that back. I wondered if he’d noticed yet.

Marco tapped me on the shoulder, and when I looked up, he stuck a post-it note onto the edge of my desk. He always had a small pad of those things on him for ideas or reminders, for quick thumbnails or doodles. 

I love that you think like this. In scattered ideas that you give their own special attention. I love that I find post-it notes around our room. I love that they fall out of your pockets and stick to the bottoms of my shoes. 

“What’s up?” He’d written, his handwriting neat. Typical illustrator.

I am crazy about you.

“Nothing,” I scribbled back. I passed the note to him, the sticky part clinging to my finger; Marco peeled it off, his fingers grazing mine. He bit his lip when he read it, then hunched over the desk and started writing on the back.

I can’t handle losing you as a friend. I can’t be the person you deserve. And even if I was, you don't feel the same way for me anyway. You’re my friend. That’s all.

I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting through my stuff for a post-it note you might have dropped.

After a minute, Marco handed the note back. He’d drawn a pizza with little pepperoni and everything.

“Mina’s?” he scrawled along the edge of the crust.

“Going to Christa’s w Eren,” I wrote back.

Marco peeled a fresh note. “Might be able to come to Christa’s later. Dinner w Thomas first.”

I stared at the post-it stuck to my notebook, frustration washing through me.

“Why would you ask me about Mina’s then?” I wrote back. I didn’t look at him when I handed the note back; I focused on the teacher, glowering, and waited for the study guide packets she’d started handing out along the rows.

Marco got the heap of packets first; he took one, then stuck the post-it on top of the pile and gave them to me. I took the packet with the note, holding the rest of them out blindly to the junior sitting on my right. 

“Because I miss Mina’s with you,” he'd written.

I stared at the words until they stopped being words. Until they were the motions of his hands and the touch of his fingers, trapped on the paper like a handprint in a fossil. Evidence that he missed me.

Marco chewed his pen again, glancing back and forth between me and the professor. Waiting for me to answer. 

“I love you,” I wrote slowly.

“I’ll see you all next week,” the professor finished. “Happy Friday, everyone.”

The rest of the students started putting their stuff away. I left the post-it note stuck to the page of my notebook and closed it, shoving it in my backpack and standing up with the rest of the class.

Marco stood up and stretched his arms out, his shoulders cracking, then picked up his backpack.

“What were you going to say?” he asked as we moved along the row of seats toward the exit.

“Nothing,” I muttered.

“You were writing something,” he pointed out.

I didn’t respond.

There were a lot of people in this class, especially for a liberal arts elective, so the flow of kids out the door was slow. We stood waiting, shuffling our feet and moving together.

“Jean.” Marco’s voice was dangerously close to my ear, and when I turned and looked up at him he was right there, right behind me, over my shoulder, his head bowed slightly and his eyes level with mine.

I scowled at him, but I couldn’t look away. “I thought we were all going to Christa’s.”

“We are,” Marco replied. “I just have to deal with Thomas first.”

I turned away without a word, forcing myself not to stare at his mouth.

“Jean,” he said again, even quieter.

No. I didn’t want to do this now, I didn’t want him to ask if I was alright for the millionth time. I didn't want this tenseness and this awkward, painful ache that was all of my conversations with him in the last few weeks. I didn’t want to be reminded that I was single-handedly flushing my friendship with him down the toilet. All because I couldn’t control myself. All because I couldn’t get my shit together and stop betraying my best friend.

God fucking damn it.

“What?” I said finally. “Spit it out.”

The line of kids started moving again, and I felt him get shoved up against me. The length of the side of his body, his hip bone against the small of my back. Marco didn’t say anything until we had stopped moving again, shifting away from each other, right next to the doorframe, almost out into the main hallway...

“I wish you would tell me what’s going on,” he said softly in my ear.

I fought the urge to shiver. I fought it so hard that my whole body tensed up.

Finally we plunged into the cold hallway. He stayed close to me though, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket. He was waiting for me to say something.

“I’m tired as fuck,” I said in response, unhelpful.

“I know. You keep waking up early.”

So he did notice. I always thought he was asleep when I’d been getting up stupid early, every day since three weeks ago -- five, maybe five thirty in the morning, when the showers were certified to be deserted and I could have some time by myself.

Not like that. Jesus.

I just needed to be in a space without people to deal with the anxiety. The frustration, and the constantly having to remind myself that I was nothing but a shitty teenager with hormones and bad decision making skills. It happened to the best of us. And hopefully, it would pass.

I’d just been putting my pajamas back on and getting back in bed and waiting for his alarm to go off before I went to get dressed with him like we always did.

I’d just been pretending that it never happened.

But he’d noticed. 

“Jean..” Marco said suddenly. I felt his fingers wrap around my upper arm, his hand warm even through my jacket. He pulled me back -- gently, with no force, but I followed his touch anyway until I was facing him. And we stood there in the middle of the hallway, looking at each other, the crowd of students circulating around us as they left.

I looked up at him, my eyes too wide, my face burning, especially my nose--

I sneezed into the elbow of my jacket, the arm that he wasn't holding. God damn it.

Marco laughed. “Aww. You sneeze like a monster, holy shit.”

I grimaced, and his grin faded. Guilt flooded my lungs and made it hard to breathe for a second. Or maybe this was nothing, and the guilt in my lungs was really phlegm from this cold, and it didn’t matter, and he was just my friend, and he would stay that way.

My Marco. Smile at me again. Please.

“It’s ‘cause I’m so manly and shit,” I replied, then sniffed a little.

Marco fought a smile. “Are you gonna be ok?”

“I’m fine. Just...” I picked the right words. “You’re definitely coming to Christa’s later?”

“If you want me to,” Marco said.

I looked up at him, fighting the urge to say--

“Marco!” called a voice from across the hall. 

Oh, this fucking asshole.

“Thomas,” Marco said, sounding.. breathless. “Hey.”

He let go of my arm. He’d been holding onto me the entire time.

Thomas strode across the hall with a grin, smears of plaster on his skinny jeans and across the chest of his letterman jacket. They always did this, meeting up after classes ended, Thomas always heading over from the sculpture studios. 

I tried to forget. I was reminded constantly. Every day.

“Hey Jean,” Thomas said brightly as he reached us.

Gene. He always pronounced it like Gene, how many fucking times-- He didn’t even do it on purpose, this kid’s skull was just that thick. How do you love someone who is so blatantly and honestly not interested in being intelligent? Really? 

Marco spoke up. “Actually, it’s Jea-- mmm.”

Thomas had kissed him right on the lips in the middle of him saying my name.

Right there. Right in the middle of the hall, not giving a shit who saw.

Thomas wrapped his arms around Marco’s waist, and Marco had to stand on his tip toes just to kiss him. The height difference made me want to gag.

Thomas towered over me with a grin when he pulled away. “What’s up?”

I glanced sideways, at Marco’s bright red face and downcast eyes. And then I just walked away; I turned on my heel and walked right the fuck in the other direction, because so help me God, I was going to slug Thomas in the jaw.

I had to remind myself not to be a brat. That this was a good thing.

It’s good that he’s with Thomas. He can go on dates and hold hands and kiss in public. Thomas isn’t afraid of being gay, he doesn’t worry about his parents hating him. He doesn’t wake up every morning in a blind fucking panic. This is what Marco deserves.

Be normal. Pretend. For Marco.

I turned around, walking backwards. “See you at Christa’s,” I called to Marco.

My voice was a little too false, a little too bright. I caught the expression of confusion and... something else that crossed Marco’s face.

“Yeah,” he called back finally. “See you.”

And then I was out the door and in the thin, brittle cold of the early October evening. But not before I had seen Thomas lace his fingers through Marco’s.

It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. 

I got to the other side of the building before I pressed my back against the brickwork and took deep breaths.

Thomas was the perfect gentleman. The kid held doors open and returned text messages promptly and came up with dumb reasons to come visit, knocking on the door of our room just to see him, to give him something or ask him about his homework. He kissed him whenever he had an excuse, he would’ve kissed him in front of the whole damn school, he didn’t care who saw. And that was what Marco deserved.

Marco deserved to be kissed. In public, on a date, in a movie theatre, on his doorstep, in the rain, on his birthday, on a random Tuesday afternoon, in front of the Eiffel Tower, every day.

And I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to admit to anyone that I was gay. Bisexual. Whatever category I fell under, I couldn’t deal with it right now. I wasn’t ready to face anyone, especially my family. It wasn’t wrong; I wasn't wrong for feeling like this, I knew that now. Nothing that Marco was could ever be wrong. But still, I was afraid of the looks on their faces when I undoubtedly became the failure of a son. 

I wasn’t ready to give Marco what he deserved, but Marco didn’t want it from me anyway. He just wanted me back as his friend, and he had Thomas.

It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing.

I fell in love with Marco watching him fall in love with someone else. Watching him get ready for a date. Watching him blush at Thomas’s sweeping corny gestures. Watching him touch someone in that tender way that he did. 

Even if I wasn’t already eyebrow deep in this unrequited love bullshit, I would have fallen in love with Marco for that. For his cheesy flirting and his shyness. For his encouragement and his respect. For the little noise he made whenever he got kissed, because he was always kinda surprised that someone would want to kiss him.

At least someone was kissing him. Even if it wasn’t me, right? Right?

“Dude?” 

I straightened up immediately from where I’d slouched against the wall. Eren crossed the grass from the sidewalk, coming toward me with a strange look on his face.

“Hey bro,” I said, my voice light. “You mind if we stop at my dorm first so I can drop my shit off?”

“Sure...” Eren said slowly. “Are you alright?”

We started walking towards my dorm, our footsteps falling into pace. 

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m just getting sick.”

“No, I meant the look on your face. Like you were going to kill a dude.”

“I feel like I always look like that,” I said, trying to deflect the comment.

“Only recently,” Eren said. ‘You’re not going to punch me again, are you?”

“No.”

If Jaeger was noticing, then I had to be bad.

 

*

 

Christa’s apartment suited Christa perfectly. It was small but filled with light, even after we’d been there a few hours and the sun was setting. The kitchen was cozy and tiny, a small section off the living room, and her bedroom was even smaller.

I would have been laughing at the contrast of her tall, lanky, swaggering girlfriend Ymir in this delicate fairytale of an apartment. I would have been laughing, if I wasn’t jealous as fuck that someone got to live with and cook with and sleep with and make art with their freckled significant other. As different as the two were, they had each other, and that was more than I could ever hope for. 

The apartment felt cramped with the two of them, me, Eren, and Armin all squashed onto the couches and mismatched chairs in the living room/kitchen, but it was fine. It was fun. The bean bag chair I was sitting on made me want to fall asleep, but my friends made me want to stay all night. We all agreed to just go get food later and fuck around right now, it was Friday, everywhere would stay open late. Ymir offered us all some Bud light, but I only took one and sipped it.

I kinda get handsy when I’m drunk. And also I'm kind of a fucking lightweight. And... Ok, every single time I’ve gotten drunk, it’s ended up with me making out with someone, and that did not need to happen tonight. I didn’t care who it might be with. 

Even without the beer, I already was starting to feel like shit: I could feel the tightness in my chest from the cold, and whenever I coughed, I hacked like a smoker. Still, though, I wasn’t going to leave until late so I could hang out with my friends.

Or at least, I wasn’t going to leave until Marco showed up so I knew he was ok.

The buzz on the apartment’s intercom came somewhere around 9 PM. When Christa buzzed him up and left the front door open, there he was. 

Alone.

He still had his backpack from class. That meant he’d never gone back to the dorm room, he’d just come straight here from wherever he’d gone with Thomas.

He was smiling as he talked to Christa, but he looked so tired.

I saw Marco’s eyes sweep the room before they stopped at me. Then he lowered his gaze, closing the door behind him and sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Why didn’t he say hi to me? Was he angry about earlier? 

Ah Christ.

“Hi Marco,” I said lamely.

He just looked up at me with those dark eyes, and then Armin caught his attention, and he looked away before he could reply.

“Where’s Thomas?” Armin asked. “I thought he was coming, too.”

Marco’s voice was light. “I, uh... I broke up with him.”

A heavy moment of silence hung in the air between all of us.

Then Ymir let out a low whistle of relief. “Thank God.”

Christa stifled a smile; Armin and Eren nodded pretty enthusiastically.

I just stared at him.

Marco raised his eyebrows and laughed. “Wait, what? You guys all said you liked him!”

“We wanted to like him for you, honey,” Christa said gently.

“He’s so nice it’s fucking creepy,” offered Eren.

Marco slapped a hand to his forehead and laughed again. “I know... I mean-- he’s really, really nice... And he was so sweet, I just... I don’t know how to be with a nice guy, I guess. I would rather have someone with passion any day. Like... intensity. Like there’s something actually going on in his head, and Thomas... He was just so pleasant, all the time...”

“You had to hang out with grumpy-ass Jean just to balance it out,” Ymir chuckled.

I didn’t even respond to the hit. I barely heard it. I was just looking at Marco.

“Did he take it alright?” Armin asked from where he sat on the couch.

“Yeah, I mean he was upset. But he kind of... knew already. He-- I think...” Marco rubbed the back of his neck. “He knew.”

I could feel the release of it. The relief and the panic at the same time.

Thomas had been this concrete wall in my brain, this notion of firm hopeless finality, because Marco was with someone and that was the end of it. And I’d been slapping pointless mud bricks and grass and water to the wall, trying to convince myself that it was good, that I needed it. That if the wall held out just a little longer, was just a little thicker, I could deal with it. I could move on, and I could get over Marco.

Now, the wall was gone. Vanished. And my poor attempts to stay away from him were on the ground at my feet. Every time I’d told myself, “it’s a good thing” crumbled into dust.

They’d changed conversation topic. Ymir was talking about going to get food, and Armin was counting dollar bills from his wallet, trying to see what he could afford.

Marco met my gaze.

“Hey,” he said finally. “Stop giving me that look. I figured you would be glad, I know you hated Thomas.”

“I didn’t,” I said. “I didn’t hate him.”

I was depending on Thomas. I needed him because he was making me stand my ground and do the right thing for my best friend.

The expression on Marco’s face changed. He had been trying to smile, but the way he looked at me...

“Oh,” was all he said. “Oh.”

“Jean,” Eren said suddenly, “pizza or Chinese?”

I looked away from Marco and shrugged. “Whatever, guys. I don’t care.”

“Marco?” Eren asked.

Marco stood up from the floor. “I’m good for now. Christa, your bathroom is on the right...?”

“On the left,” Christa replied, leaning forward and pointing down the hall.

Marco got up with a “thanks,” sidling past me on the beanbag chair near the doorway. 

It took all my strength not to catch his hand as he passed and kiss the freckles on his knuckles. All of my strength. His hands had been clenched into fists.

This was going to take so much more now. Without Thomas, this would be so much harder because if I fucked up, Marco wouldn’t have anyone else to turn to; and I would fuck up. Every time I would look at him, every part of me but my head would be screaming.

It was the first time I genuinely thought of transferring dorms and getting a new roommate. The thought made my stomach hurt, but at this point, it was probably the only option.

He deserved so much more than my weakness. Even if it meant him being with Thomas again. Even if it meant I didn’t get to see him.

“God damn it people, Chinese food or pizza?” 

“Why don’t we do both?”

“Why don’t half of us get Chinese food and the other half get pizza, and we just gourmet buffet that shit?”

“That’s gross.”

“Your mom is gross.”

“I vote Chinese food.”

“Armin, what do you think?”

“Whatever you want to get, Eren.”

“GOD DAMN IT--”

“Jean, you break the tie.”

I looked up, startled by the sound of my name. “Huh?”

Eren shook his head. “He’s sick, he doesn’t count. He’s getting his own little invalid pizza slice.”

“I’m not sick.” And then I sneezed, because even my own sinus system was undermining me at this point. God damn it.

“Yeah, ok.” Ymir got off the couch. “Alright, let’s just go, because I know you pansies are going to change your mind on the way there, anyway. Jean, go get Marco.”

“Why me?” I blurted out.

Could anyone tell what I was thinking? I shot a glare at all of them, wondering if one of my friends had secret telepathic powers and could hear me from across the room. Obviously that was paranoid as hell, but you know what? If I couldn’t tell the person that I cared about how I felt, then I sure as hell wasn’t telling anyone else. Especially not my friends, who would lord it over me and make me feel like I was in seventh grade again. 

Go shove it up your ass, I thought violently. You telepathic bastard, whoever you are. Probably Eren.

“Because he’s been in the bathroom for a long time,” Ymir told me as she pulled on her boots, “and he just got dumped, and he might be upset or something, and for a while I thought you two were supposed to be good friends.”

Ouch.

I got up from my bean bag chair, my voice rough. “You guys just go without me, I don’t want anything. I’ll make sure he’s alright.”

“Try not to be too sympathetic,” Ymir called sarcastically as I went down the hallway. 

But she was right. I would have to keep my distance, I would have to maintain that boundary, I would have to go at it like a friend. Like a bro. The fact that I had to mentally prepare myself for that burned like bile in the pit of my stomach.

I turned left at the end of the hall and knocked on the closed bathroom door.

“Marco?” I asked, my voice too gruff, too practiced, too false. Ugh.

No answer.

I raised my hand to knock again, then heard a sound: I waited until the last of my friends had shuffled out the front door on their quest for food and the whole apartment had fallen silent. Then I listened... And heard sniffling.

I turned around.

He had gone right instead of left. He was sitting on the edge of Christa’s bed, and when he caught sight of me in the doorway, he ran the sleeve of his jacket across his face immediately. He did it again with the backs of both his hands, wiping his tears away like a little kid.

“I thought you guys were leaving,” he said hastily.

“Marco,” I said, shocked. “Are you crying--?”

Marco shook his head. “No. I mean, yes, but-- I do this, it’s a thing, I’m a crier, don’t judge me, ok?” He laughed slightly. “I cry at sad dog commercials, and hallmark cards, it’s just how it is, it doesn’t mean anything. I’m ok. I’m ok, really. Did everyone leave?”

He was attempting to act like it never happened. He was staring at his feet and wiping his eyes again every so often for good measure.

I wanted to kiss where the streak of tears still shone on his cheeks in the light of the bedside lamp.

Control yourself. That was my mantra. Fucking control yourself. For his sake.

I sat down next to him on the bed. My voice was low. “Yeah. Food.”

Don’t touch him. Don’t kiss the corner of his mouth, where a stray tear had slipped down his cheek and stained the edge of his lips salty. 

Marco wiped his face again, not looking up at me. “I’m sorry, I... I'm sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I said quietly. “Is it Thomas?”

Please say yes. Please say you miss him, and you want him back. Please make it easy for me to say no to you.

Suddenly, Marco lifted his head up and looked at me. Stared at me, at my whole face, his eyes moving frantically from my lips to my nose to my ears to my hair, taking in everything, until they met mine again.

I didn’t realize how close I’d sat to him -- he was inches away from me -- but I didn’t move. I just stared back, looking at everything, moving methodically, from the dark mess of his hair to the freckle at the corner of his mouth. Feeling blessed and spoiled and desperate to have this moment to just look at him. 

My Marco.

“Jean,” he said very softly. “It’s not about Thomas.”

My heart stammered.

Don’t. Don’t do this. Don’t fuck this up. He’s your best friend. Don’t.

I just stared up at him, my gaze flickering to his mouth.

Marco bowed his head forward slightly, taking in a shaky breath, and I thought--

My head tipped back instinctively. I thought he was going to kiss me.

Marco looked up, surprised. And he was closer now, hovering so close to me that when he exhaled, I felt it, warm and sweet, on my lips.

Don’t do this. My head was screaming, and I couldn’t get my thoughts straight, and a lump rose in my throat and made it hard to swallow, and I drew closer to him, leaning in, my nose barely brushing against the tip of his.

Marco’s eyelashes fluttered closed.

I kissed him too hard. Like a punch in the face. But Marco responded instantly, kissing me back, moving me slower, calming me down, pulling away for a breath and then when we kissed again, it was achingly tender. His hand came up and cradled my face, his thumb trailing across my cheekbone.

The taste of him. The way he moved with me. My heart was slamming in my chest. 

No.

No. No. No. No.

I pulled away from Marco, lingering just close enough that he nuzzled his forehead against mine, both of us breathing hard. 

I jerked away and stood up, leaving him there on the bed. My hands were shaking.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I turned my back so he didn’t see me bite my lips where they still tasted like him. 

“Jean,” Marco said softly. “I’m not. I’m not sorry.”

I wouldn’t let myself look at him. 

I couldn’t get my head straight. I reeled from panic to desperately memorizing the soft curve of his mouth, from wanting to kiss him again to wanting to punish myself for being so damn weak. For betraying him, for overstepping a boundary, for being sick and probably looking gross in this moment, for doing this when he’d just broken up with someone he probably actually cared about--

It took me a while to realize what he’d said. I turned around to look at him, confused.

“You never even noticed, did you?” Marco said, staring at me, his face bright red.

“What?”

“Sit down,” he told me firmly. 

I did, dazed. Marco promised he would come right back and left the room for a minute... He came back with his backpack, and from its unizipped mouth he pulled his sketchbook.

He sat down next to me, close, his thigh against mine. Even this small touch was more than I’d had in weeks with him, and my chest got tight.

“I broke up with Thomas,” Marco said quietly, “because my teacher asked to see my sketchbook in class today, and I was embarrassed as hell, because it’s full of you. I didn’t think it was fair to Thomas anymore... Just... Just-- here.” 

He put his sketchbook in my hands. I looked up at him, and when he nodded, I opened it.

He was right. Every other page was me. 

Full body sketches, swiftly drawn, capturing a gesture or a movement I’d made. Small studies of my hands, of my face. He would be in the middle of designing compositions for his illustration homework, and at the edge of the paper, he would doodle me. My toes. My back. Whenever I was working on my paintings. 

He caught me when I was sleepy. He caught me when I was laughing. Everything I loved about him, he had painstakingly drawn about me. And drawing was the same thing as love to Marco.

“How could you not notice?” he mumbled, his face as red as mine.

I was speechless. I put the sketchbook down and swallowed hard.

My words came out disjointed and screwed up, and I stared at my lap. “I didn’t... You had Thomas, and we... I didn’t think you wanted...”

I didn’t think you wanted me.

I wasn’t going to say it, but I was thinking it. And somehow, he knew.

“I want you,” Marco said quietly. “but you told me you were straight, and no matter what I felt or what I thought you felt, I had to respect that. I just... I didn't know if you wanted me back, and I--"

I kissed him. Soft, barely, just to press my lips to his. Marco leaned his forehead on mine, lifting his hand to my face again; I caught it and laced my fingers through his, holding it in my lap.

Marco smiled. "You remember what I said to you the first day, at Mina’s?”

“You promised not to fall in love with me,” I said softly.

“I blew it," he whispered. "I blew it.”

He squeezed my hand, and I wrapped my free arm around his waist, pulling him closer. I kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him again.

Together we shifted farther onto the bed, trying to find a less awkward position without letting go of each other. We didn’t say anything, we just moved together until we were lying on our sides, close enough to touch, far enough to just... look. Just look at each other.

We’d barely even talked over the last few weeks, but now we were here, and it made me light-headed.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Even when he wiggled closer to me and leaned his forehead on mine again, I stared. At the edge of his collarbones under his shirt. At his freckles. At the warm, creamy tone of the skin of his inner arm when he wrapped both arms around my neck again. Even when I closed my eyes, I was memorizing the sounds of him: his steady breath, the soft sighing sound he made when I ran my hand up and down his back, trailing my fingers along his spine through his t-shirt.

Marco’s thumb traced lightly along the nape of my neck, back and forth, rhythmic and soothing. 

How do you memorize what it feels like when someone loves you back? How do you memorize one moment of pure, quiet happiness?

I was trying so damn hard to figure it out. I just wanted to remember this. To never let it fade. 

Because the guilt and the fear were starting to strangle me.

Because I had to say no, and I wanted to hold onto this for as long as possible.

I had to do it for him. He wanted better, he deserved better, and I couldn’t give it to him.

No matter how addicted I was to the way that he fit in my arms.

I had to.

I shifted in his grip and turned, lying over him, nearly on top of him-- he turned his face and looked up at me. Marco’s hand slipped from my neck and to my face again, cradling the edge of my jaw, his thumb running over my bottom lip.

I pressed a kiss to the pad of his thumb. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t not.

I was choking on the words, but I had to say it.

“Marco.”

“What?”

“I can’t... I can’t do this.”

Marco faltered, his eyes widening. But he didn’t let go of me. 

“Why?” he said very quietly.

I swallowed hard. “I don’t... Nobody knows that I’m... I’m not ready to deal with it right now. I can’t give you what you had with Thomas-- I can’t.. I can’t be your...”

“Boyfriend?” Marco asked.

I don’t know if I was terrified or elated to hear him say it.

“Is that all?” he added. “Is that your reason why?”

My eyes widened with surprise. “I-- yeah. That’s all.”

Marco stroked my hair off my forehead. “You think being someone’s boyfriend means mackin’ in public and posting about it on Facebook and dumb stuff like that? You think that’s all there is to it, you think that’s all I want with you?”

Well that threw me, because yeah, that’s all that had ever been required of me as a ‘boyfriend’ before. I opened my mouth, then closed it, and Marco smiled slightly.

“I just don’t want you to be disappointed,” I said quietly. “Or hurt.”

“Jean, are you gay?”

He said it so easy.

“Yeah,” I mumbled finally. It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud in my life.

“Do you wanna be with me?” Marco asked, gentler.

“Hell yeah,” I replied immediately, then realized what I’d said and blushed.

Marco smiled. “Then that’s it. I mean, just... I don’t care about that stuff. I don’t even like PDA. We don’t have to tell anyone right now, we can just figure us out. That's what's important. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get there. I just need my best friend back. And I need to wake up next to you, and steal all your shirts, and kiss you whenever you look mad, and kiss you all the time actually, not that you look mad all the time, I just mean-- mmm.”

I had leaned forward and cut him off mid-sentence with a kiss.

“I do look mad all the time,” I murmured into his cheek. “Kiss me all the time.”

Marco smiled. “Is that a yes? Are we doing this?”

I didn’t answer for a minute. I lay down next to him again and leaned my face in his hair, pulling him close to me again, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. Marco buried his face in the crook of my neck.

Only after I’d finally taken enough deep breaths and reassured myself that this was real, and I could have him, and he was ok with it... Only then did I speak.

“Which shirt do you want?”

Marco smiled into my chest.

We just stayed there after that, quiet for a while, drinking each other in.

When Ymir and Christa and Eren and Armin got back, Marco kissed me on the cheek before he went out of the bedroom first, calm and relaxed, and pretended like nothing had happened in front of our friends.

He did that for me. And I loved him more for that -- for respecting me, for giving me that space -- than for anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> thank you everyone for reading/drawing/commenting/kudosing/generally being wonderful and supportive <3333


	6. Alone Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "My heart is like a stallion / They love it more when it's broken / Do you wanna feel beautiful? / ...This is the road to ruin / And we started at the end... / Let's be alone together. / We could stay young forever."
> 
> \- Fall Out Boy, "Alone Together"

Let me tell you a few stories. These are what I remember; these are the parts that I hold onto from that weekend. We had few good moments to keep from college, but these are them.

I seriously recommend falling in love with your best friend.

I also seriously recommend getting a fucking terrible cold at the same time, because then he feels bad for you. And you spend the entire weekend in your bedroom cuddling and playing video games and he kisses you even though you’re disgusting and when he walks through the door with pizza and calzones and soda from Mina’s, it’s like the second coming of Jesus.

My nose wouldn’t stop running. My head felt like a cinderblock. My throat was so sore that my voice was hoarse and scratchy. My whole body felt like mush. And that is the story of how I spent my first weekend with my boyfriend. I was disgusting.

But it was like nothing had changed -- the last three weeks went out the window where they fucking belonged, and we were easy. We were stupid jokes and whole conversations in noises that weren’t human, lying in his bed wearing each other’s t-shirts and basketball shorts all day. We hung out with each other the whole weekend, and we didn’t get sick of it. 

We were everything we’d been before. I had my best friend back -- the one I could eat the whole vending machine at the end of the hall with, the one I played video games with until my eyes hurt. 

Except we were more, and we were better. Because he tasted like Doritos when I kissed him. Because when he gave up trying to play COD, he sat in my lap and slouched back against my chest with his art history textbook, studying with my arms around him. 

Because he didn’t mind when I yelled in his ear about the game. Because he laughed at my stupid sneeze. Because he laughed even harder when I took Nyquil once and only once, and I don’t even remember half the things I said.

And that is the story of how we learned to move with each other instead of around each other. How to balance the friendship with the relationship, the hilarious idiotic moments and those shocking incredible moments where I couldn’t breathe because of him.

However. No matter how cute he was, I was still a compilation of all the “before” parts of cold medication commercials. I was a fucking mess.

I spent most of Saturday asleep in his bed. Marco promised even if I did sleep, he would stay in bed with me anyway... When I woke up in the afternoon and felt a little better, I found him lying on his stomach next to me with his laptop open in front of him and his headphones in, watching a game walkthrough. 

I nudged him with my toes. Every other part of me felt sore.

Marco looked up at me, then leaned over and gently pressed a kiss to what he could reach -- my bare shoulder, where the sleeve of my Punisher t-shirt had twisted and pulled up because of how much I moved in my sleep. And then he took an earbud out of his ear and handed it to me.

And that is the story of how I watched the entire walkthrough of Bioshock, but never actually saw how it ended. To this day, I don’t know. But god damn it, Marco’s sides are really ticklish and sensitive, and that was way more interesting.

Sunday, I felt worse, but Marco had to finish his illustration for homework and he couldn’t get any of his drawings right under the covers. So we got out of bed... and tugged our comforters and pillows and shit onto the floor. He could work easier like that, his pencils and block of paper spread out in front of him, getting a little disconnected and disappearing into his work. We were quiet because he was focused; I sat with my back just pressed against his, playing one of my brother’s old racing games until it was too much. Until I felt dizzy and exhausted, and my whole body started to feel cold from a fever. 

I gave up and wrapped my comforter tight around me, covered all the way to the tip of my nose. I laid down next to him where he sat, cross-legged.

Marco looked down at me, faintly surprised, like he’d forgotten where he was. Then he smiled. “Hi. You look like a burrito.”

“I’m manifesting so that a burrito will magically appear.” My voice was muffled.

“Fluffy burrito,” he replied, running his fingers through my stupid hair, messy and sticking out ridiculously from the edge of the covers.

I moved closer to him, nuzzling my face into the side of his knee.

“You’re so funny,” he smiled.

“Mmm?”

“I never would have thought you would be the guy who likes to snuggle, but that’s all you do. Snuggly burrito.”

“Shut up.” Damn it. I changed the subject. “What are you drawing?”

Marco lifted up his sketch pad, showing me his illustration and raising his eyebrows, a silent ask for critique. I moved closer to him, leaning on my elbow, and looked at it. 

“It’s insane,” I croaked. “It’s so good, dude.”

“Shhh,” he whispered, putting it down on the floor again.

I lay back down and nuzzled into the side of his leg again, closing my eyes. “Why do you always put flowers in your drawings?”

Marco thought about it for a while.

“They add a whole layer of meaning,” he said finally, “that would be way too literal if you tried to use anything else. Like... Say I’m drawing a hero dying. It’s sad, he’s brave, he’s dying in a field. So I’m going to surround him with Gladiolus. Those flowers are specifically named after gladiators -- they’re automatically this symbol of honor and courage and everything to the people who know that. And even with the people who don’t know that, the shape of the flower is similar to the hero’s sword, so it works as a mirror and they understand they’re connected. If you tried to do it with any other object, it would be too in-your-face. You know what I mean?”

I looked up at him, my eyes wide.

“You asked...” Marco mumbled, blushing a little.

“I didn’t know you put so much into it.”

“You know what a big nerd I am.”

“Does every flower have some big meaning behind it?”

“Usually.”

“Do you know all of them?”

“Most. I use them a lot, so I just remember them.”

“Make out with me right fucking now, you intelligent piece of shit.”

Marco laughed. “I think--”

I interrupted him, loudly sneezing three times into my comforter.

“--I think you should take a nap, snuggly burrito.”

“Hmmpfh.”

I watched him draw until I fell asleep.

And that is the story of how I was realized that everything Marco did had meaning. Everything was layered and sacred and sincere with him; nothing was ever just what it was. His touch, his thoughts, his smile. He lived steeped in story. I loved him. I liked him. I was blown away by him.

I was a thirteen year old again with him, counting kisses and forehead nuzzles and naps and all the times he held my hand. I wanted him in the most innocent way possible that weekend; I just wanted him.

He didn’t say anything when I crawled into bed with him while he was falling asleep on Sunday night. He just smiled at me. And that said more than a long, drawn-out conversation about sharing a bed ever could.

I don’t know where the courage came from to do that. I think my flood gates were open; I think they were just blown right the fuck off. There was no turning back. There was no more fear, only this unequivocal balance between us. I got under the covers with him, and he wouldn’t let me go. I wanted him and he wanted me.

I’d never been so sure about anything in my fucking life. 

Do you know what it’s like to be a college student, your job and your school and your whole future constantly this looming thing... To be someone like me, so uncertain all the time, just trying to protect myself...

Do you know what it’s like to be so completely sure about someone?

That’s the story of how I learned that my very existence was better when it was spent anywhere near Marco.

 

*

 

On Monday morning, I felt better, but not enough to survive my six-hour drawing class. The thought of standing up for more than twenty minutes without feeling woozy was daunting. I decided to skip and sent an email to all the teachers whose classes I would miss for the day, requesting homework, then fell asleep again before Marco even got out of the shower that morning. I do remember him kissing me before he left, though.

When I startled awake in his bed a few hours later, my head wasn’t hurting so bad. I attempted to pretend like I was being productive. I got out of bed and brushed my teeth, put clean clothes on -- and by that, I mean put on some old soccer shorts and dug through his drawers until I found Marco’s favorite striped sweater he wore all the time. It was big on him so it was bigger on me, satisfying and comfy as shit. I crawled back into his bed with my laptop and the thick book I had to read for a paper due next week.

But my throat was scratchy and sore as hell, and my nose wouldn’t stop running, and the email replies from my teachers about all the homework I had piling up were flooding in, and the book I had to read was six hundred pages long...

It was the thought that counted.

I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep again until there was a hand touching my face. I was suddenly, violently awake, jerking from the touch and shuddering away, the big sweater twisting up around my chest.

It took me a minute to understand. I was lying on my stomach, tangled in the covers and sweating, the pages of my book bent awkwardly underneath me where I’d fallen asleep on it. So much for that.

Marco leaned towards me against the edge of the tall bed, folding his arms on the mattress and resting his chin on them. His dark whiskey eyes were level with mine.

“Hey,” he said softly, “hey. Just me.”

I closed my eyes again and sighed, my heat pounding. Only then did he reach out again to stroke my damp hair off my face. His hand was cold from being outside, it felt so good on my forehead.

My throat was thick and hoarse. “Hi.”

“Hi, baby. How you feeling?”

I looked up at him. He’d never called me that before.

“Mmm.” I was suddenly biting back a smile.

Marco didn’t notice. He kicked his shoes off, climbing into bed next to me. I moved over, tugging my sweatshirt back down in place and pulling him into my arms. Greedy, like I hadn’t seen him in days. Marco didn’t hesitate, his fingers grazing the bare skin of my hips as he slid his arms around me and kissed my neck. 

“I only have a ten minute break,” he murmured, frowning. “God, you’re really hot.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

“I meant the fever.” Marco kissed my cheek. “Nice sweater, by the way.”

“Stop kissing me, damn it. You’re gonna get sick.” At least my grumbling actually sounded threatening because of the gravelly throat and stuffy nose. 

“I’m immune to your freshman diseases,” he said spookily.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Everyone gets sick freshman year, but you’re usually good after that. I’m immune,” he added in a dramatic whisper. Then he kissed me on the lips.

“Stop,” I mumbled, sniffing. “I’m fuckin’ gross.”

Marco kissed my forehead. “Very cute and pitiful. Only a little gross.”

“Stop kissing me, you nerd.”

“No.” Marco just smiled, trailing his fingers up and down my back.

“You called me baby,” I said softly, not taking my eyes off his.

“I did.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“Mhmm.”

He rubbed his tired eyes; I saw the streak of charcoal on the rim of his palm from drawing. “I figured you’d want me to call you Commander or something.”

“That would be awesome. I’ll call you Commander.”

Marco laughed. “Please don’t. We’ll find a good one. And is there a brick in my bed?”

Oh. My book was still underneath us -- I let go of him and sat up, pulling the thick paperback out from beneath his legs and tossing it to the end of the bed. I intended to lie down with him again, but I had pressed my back against the cool wall sitting up, and it felt too good to move. I moaned.

“Sick baby,” Marco crooned, shifting around and sitting up next to me. He reached over me for the book. “You’re reading Gone With the Wind?”

“Yeah. For Humanities, talking about race and character development and I don’t know.” I rubbed his leg, trying to remember the quote from the old movie. “Frankly, sweetheart, I don’t give a damn.”

Marco snorted. “My dear.”

“Huh?”

He leafed through the pages. “It’s my dear. The quote is ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.’ I’m tellin’ you, I love this movie, and I read this book last year.”

“No it’s not.”

Marco sat up, handing me the book with the pages specifically marked with his fingers. “Look. It’s right here, right after Melanie dies.”

“Well fuckin’ spoiler alert,” I grumbled, taking the book and reading the quote.

God damn it. He was right. I flopped the book down, and he laughed. 

“Shut up,” I told him.

“My dear,” he responded smugly.

God fucking damn it.

“Oh my god,” he said suddenly, “that’s it. Call me sweetheart.” 

I wrinkled my nose. “What? No.”

Marco was grinning at me. “Too late. It’s decided. And every time you say it, I’m gonna cackle because I’m right and that is making you so freaking mad.”

“I’m not mad,” I grumbled, frowning. “And I’m not calling you that.”

Marco laughed and kissed my cheek. “I have to go back to class, I’m out in an hour though. I’ll text you, ok?” 

Immediately I was disappointed that he was leaving already, but I didn’t say anything. When he slid out of bed and started pulling his shoes on again, I leaned my head back against the wall and sighed.

“Say it,” Marco said, grinning again.

“No.”

“Say it, say it, say it.” He shoved his keys in his back pocket. 

“No. I am not calling you sweetheart. I’m never saying that again.”

“Sore loser.”

“Dork.”

“Are you gonna miss me?”

“Not anymore. Nerd.”

“My dear.”

“I-- god damn it--”

Marco was laughing even as he closed the bedroom door.

And that is the story of the first person who made me smile when I was alone, not impressing anyone or trying to act a part. 

After he left, I was too awake to nap again; I sat where he’d sat, the smell of charcoal and cold October air still lingering in the sheets. I burrowed into the sheets and cracked the book open, reading for a good twenty minutes before I heard it: somewhere, lost like Atlantis in the ocean of his bed, my cell phone was vibrating. 

I left it to vibrate for a few seconds, enjoying the rush in my stomach, putting off reading the text message. He was thinking about me, and he’d said he would text me...

I miss you when you’re gone and you were just here and that’s stupid. 

Whatever.

And then I realized that the vibrations were holding out, and my phone was taking a call, not a text. Why would he be calling me in the middle of his class-- 

I dove under the covers for the phone, searching and finding it by the last ring, slamming the green answer button without checking the screen.

“I’m not fucking calling you sweetheart,” I said into the phone.

“Jean?”

My father’s voice was thick with anger and his accent over the bad connection. 

I thought my throat was going to close up.

I hung up the phone.

I regretted it as soon as I did, because what the fuck, of course it was me, I couldn’t pretend he’d gotten the wrong number, my dad was going to know, and I thought it was Marco, fuck, oh my god--

My phone started to vibrate in my hand again, my dad’s number lighting up the screen, and I took a deep, shaky breath and coughed my throat clear before I answered it. My voice sounded so weird, even if it wasn’t for the cold.

“Hey Dad,” I said, “what’s up?”

He didn’t even say hello in English. He started the conversation without a hello, and in French. That’s how I knew it was going to be bad.

The entire conversation was in French, my side and his. I tried to keep up.

“I just called you,” he said, his voice level. 

“Oh, you-- I didn’t--” I scrambled for the right excuse.

“What are all these emails you’re getting?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?” 

“I check the emails sent to your school account,” my dad replied. I could hear the constant, compulsive click of the pen he was probably clicking in his hands. This little angry tic made me cringe.

“All of your professors are emailing you about you missing class,” he continued, “all the homework you owe them. Why are you cutting class? What do you think we’re paying for you to do there?”

“Dad, why are you reading my emails?” Sudden anger ripped through me.

“You get important letters from the school that should be sent to your mother and I,” he replied shortly. “We don’t want important financial information to go missing just because you’re irresponsible with it.”

“How did you get into my account?!”

“You’ve used the same password for everything since you were ten years old, Jean. Why the hell are you cutting classes?”

Parents think they know you. They know that you always make your password ‘soccer’ and they know what your toes looked like when you were born. You expect them to know everything, always.

I was sitting in another guy’s bed, wearing another guy’s sweatshirt, the taste of another guy still on my lips. My heart started to pound double-time, and I kept rubbing my face, the back of my neck, staring at my lap. And I panicked, because how could he not know?

“Jean.” My dad was almost deadly, quiet and respectful.

“If you read the emails then you’d know that I got a cold.” My voice got steadily angrier, and defensive and frightened and -- I mean, you could hear that I was sick. My nose hadn’t been unstuffed for days.

“So?”

“So I just didn’t want to go to my class for six hours today, and then sit through a lecture study, I just didn’t feel like it.”

Wrong thing to say.

“You didn’t feel like it,” my dad repeated slowly.

“I mean I didn’t feel like I could do it. I’ve had a fever for the last three days, Dad, I just didn’t think it was a good idea, ok? I have to get better so I don’t miss any more goddamned time, don’t I? I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Your brother sat for his medical boards while he had bronchitis. And he passed. And you can’t manage to get up and go to a drawing class for a few hours?”

“I’m sick, Dad!”

“Let me recall every time you tried to pull that shit in high school, and your mother let you get away with it. This isn’t high school, Jean.”

I realized with a jolt that he wasn’t just lecturing me about not going to class. He was giving me the speech on responsibility and persistence, on doing what you were supposed to.

He hadn’t had to give this speech to my brothers. He just thought he had to give it to me.

I slid out of Marco’s bed and paced up and down the length of the bedroom as my dad talked. 

Forty minutes.

Forty minutes of rapid French with English peppered through it, when he couldn’t find the right word to describe how I was already throwing my life away at an art school, but would I really let myself slip with my grades, too?

Forty minutes of me giving in and letting my dad lecture, because whenever I argued with him, I knew I sounded pathetic, and he didn’t even have to tell me so.

Forty minutes of shame and guilt, because he was right. I was a pussy; I had even been feeling better this morning when I woke up, so why the hell couldn’t I have just gotten the fuck over it and gone to class?

My brothers would have.

Every so often I’d bow my head, or rub my eyes, and I’d catch the smell of Marco in the fabric of his sweater. 

I felt so exposed. My dad couldn’t see me, he wouldn’t have known, but I felt like he was in the room; his voice had so suddenly interrupted this quiet, secure place that I had been in all weekend. I felt like someone had ripped the blinds off the windows and left them open, so everyone could see in. 

A small voice in the back of my head. For forty minutes.

If he’s this mad about grades, then what would he say about Marco? 

Don’t smoke anything. Don’t dye your hair. Don’t turn queer. Don’t fail any tests. 

I had a responsibility to my family, so why did I keep on failing? 

I might as well buy a hookah and bleach my hair while I’m at it.

I was failing everyone. My father. My grandparents, whose whole intent on coming to America from France and Germany had been to live these solid, steady nuclear lives. My brothers, hurtling fast and on-track towards everything my family envisioned for them: promising careers, steady girlfriends, solid marriages, nice places to live, power and affluence, a couple of kids.

And here I was.

What does it matter if I feel sick or weak? What do feelings matter?

Marco was the first person in my life who made my feelings matter. And by my father’s standards, that was a whole new level of failure.

Forty minutes later, and I was failing Marco, too. Shrinking further and further into how I used to be. Cautious and uncertain, angry and self-conscious. Excruciatingly aware of everything I didn’t want anyone to see about me. My words were awkward and suddenly, I wasn’t making sense. I was saying the wrong thing, and then I wasn’t saying very much at all.

“Do you understand why I’m telling you this?” My dad said finally.

“Yeah. I’m sorry.” My voice was wooden.

“This school was your choice, Jean. It was your decision, and you’re going to have to honor it. Don’t make us regret letting you do this.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. My whole body felt achy suddenly. He was trying to be supportive. Or maybe he was just making it out like I was failing myself instead of him. Maybe he was right.

The call ended when he had to go into a meeting at his offices, finishing with a terse “I won’t tell your mother.” Like he was doing me a favor.

When he hung up, I stood still, in the middle of the room, neither on my side nor Marco’s.

I felt so removed from everything now. From the weekend, from every minute I’d memorized with him. It felt violated. I didn’t know how to be here and not hear my dad’s voice in my head. 

Don’t smoke anything. Don’t dye your hair. Don’t turn queer. Don’t fail any tests.

How could Marco be my biggest failure, when he was the best part of me?

How the fuck could he be both?

I couldn’t breathe in the room full of us.

I grabbed for my towel and shower stuff with clumsy, disconnected hands, already struggling to keep myself steady. My chest was constricting, my palms were slick with sweat, and people were still in class, the showers were bound to be empty. 

I barely got into the shower stall and turned the water on before my vision was too blurry.

 

*

 

I stayed in the shower for a long time. Cycling through the panic. Trying to understand. Trying to put it together. Trying to make myself work up the courage to dump Marco.

I kept choking on the words. 

I can’t do this to you. I’m not going to do this to you. 

The thought of coming out to my family... The thought of trying to explain...

It’s like having a phantom limb. 

You wake up, and you feel that part of you there. So real. So complete. 

It’s sensitive. It’s painful. It’s blissful. It’s fucking natural. How can it not be real? How is that part of you any different from the rest of your body -- how is it not as valid and acceptable as an arm or a knee?

But it’s not right. Everyone reminds you of that all the time.

You shouldn’t feel it at all. 

Sooner or later, you just accept it. There’s a part of you that you can feel but no one else can see.

I was going to do it. I was going to tell him. I was going to end it.

You don’t deserve to walk around feeling like you’re missing a fucking limb like I do when I’m not with you.

My Marco. My Marco.

You deserve better than this, and I fucking knew it the whole time, but I kissed you anyway.

I spent this weekend wrapped up in you and counting every time you smiled when you kissed me and I forgot. I forgot what it was like to be uncertain and different. What it meant to be afraid. What it meant to be less than what your family hoped for.

You made me forget to be afraid.

My heart slammed too hard in my chest, beating out a rhythm for what I was going to say. I practiced the words. I catalogued them, memorizing them, preparing myself to say them.

You deserve a boyfriend who can leave the goddamn dorm room. You deserve better than me, sitting in the bottom of a shower, sparked by a simple phone call from his dad and spiraling into this.

Every time I thought of leaving, I panicked. So for a while, I just stopped.

I just thought about Marco.

Every time I told myself to do the right fucking thing, I couldn’t.

I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t do it.

We hadn’t had enough time yet. We’d only had a couple of days to just be with each other. I needed more. I needed months of him, I needed years, I needed every day with him. I couldn’t let him go.

So that was it.

I leaned my head back against the wall of the shower stall and closed my eyes. My pulse finally started to slow.

Did it make me strong for holding onto him even though I was afraid? 

Or did it make me weak for not being able to let him go when I knew that we were both going to get hurt?

I let it go. I just let it go.

There’s only so much someone can take.

Thinking about him calmed me down.

I stayed in the shower until my fingers pruned. Until my sinuses cleared with the steam and I hacked up a lung, but breathed easy for the first time in days. Until I had put myself back together again. 

 

*

 

When I pushed the bedroom door open, toweling my hair off, Marco was home. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of his homework. 

My stomach knotted. Not out of fear. Out of relief.

He twisted around to look up at me, putting the palette covered in wet acrylic paint on the floor next to him.

“Hey,” he said easily, smiling at me. “I wondered where you went.”

I sat down next to him, cross-legged like he was, my knee just touching his. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.

Marco had gotten back from class a while ago; he'd already gotten changed, and the illustration that he’d been working on over the weekend was sectioned off with painter’s tape. Handfuls of tiny-bristled paintbrushes scattered around. Some of his tubes of paint were on their sides on the floor, the caps still open. His palette was abandoned between us on the floor because he lost interest in it, lost his train of thought; he focused all his attention on me.

"Don't yell at me," he said, smiling as he leaned over and kissed my cheek.

I turned to him suddenly and wrapped my arms around him. I hugged him too hard, holding him to me even though how we were sitting made it awkward, my arms sliding around his torso. He always wore this old flannel when he was working with paint; I clenched handfuls of it in my fists. Marco made a surprised noise, but he hugged me back, his arms around my neck. I buried my face in his shoulder.

“Woah,” Marco murmured in my ear, “Hi.”

My voice was muffled in his shirt. “Hi sweetheart.”

He chuckled. “Hmm. Ok, what happened?”

I shook my head slightly.

“Something must have happened. You wouldn’t let me win so easy.”

I just realized a lot of things, is what I should have responded.

I realized that I’m weak. I realized that you mean more to me than trying to live up to my parents’ expectations. I realized that I can’t let go of you, and I don’t know what I’ll do if you ever let go of me.

I didn’t say anything. I just hugged him tighter.

Marco shifted in my grip, pulling away to unbend his long legs from his position. He moved so that he sat in my lap facing me, his legs around my waist. My hands slid down his back, holding him to me.

“Mmm. You smell so freaking good,” Marco mumbled, nuzzling his face into my damp hair.

“Marco,” I said very quietly into his shoulder.

“What?”

I didn’t know what I was going to say. I opened my mouth, then closed it again; I just pressed a kiss to his neck.

Marco moved his arm from my shoulder and touched my face, tilting my jaw with his fingers so I looked up at him.

I just stared at him. For a long time. Too long. I couldn’t stop.

Marco stared back. He wasn’t smiling; his gaze lingered at my mouth.

When I kissed him, I just knew. 

I was certain. That was all it took for me to get back to myself. The one I wanted to be. The one with him. And nothing else. I forgot about the whole afternoon, I forgot about my dad, I forgot about the shower. I forgot the words I was going to use to convince him that being apart was better than this. They didn’t matter.

I didn’t mean to kiss him again. Even if my head was still clear from the shower, it wouldn’t last long, and I was still sick, and--

And then Marco shocked the hell out of me. I pulled away for a breath, but he caught me mid-inhale, taking advantage of my parted lips.

My resolve went out the damn window.

Fuck. The taste of him. I reacted immediately to his intensity, my heart pounding.

Fuck, this kid could kiss.

He started slow, playful. Pulling away and smiling just as I was moving for more; he left me reaching, desperate, tipping my head back and biting his lip when he frustrated me. And then he would come back, deep and surprising, his hands moving from my face to my hair, running across my shoulders, his fingers warm and firm and gentle. Jesus Christ. 

We hadn’t been urgent like this before. I wanted all of him, I wanted everything. I kissed what I could reach. When he was gasping, I kissed his neck, my teeth grazing and nibbling the freckled skin of his collarbone. Marco moaned in my ear.

I was gonna go fucking crazy.

I led my hands down his back and over his hips, slipping them under the hem of the flannel and pressing my palms flat to the bare skin of the small of his back. 

Oh my god.

“Mmm,” Marco murmured against my lips, pulling away and leaning his forehead on mine. “Here...” He sat back in my lap and let go of me, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. I moved back too, keeping one hand on his thigh but sitting back and leaning my weight on my other hand on the floor--

Not on the floor.

There was a loud, wet squelching noise, and my hand was suddenly, strangely cool.

I’d put my hand right in the fucking wet paint of his palette.

I lifted my hand up, looking in shock at the thick paint sludged from my fingertips to my wrist. All the colors were smeared together.

Marco burst out laughing, his shirt half unbuttoned.

I looked up at him. My face went red. “Shut up--”

Marco interrupted me with a kiss. Then, his lips still on mine, he ran his finger down the length of the paint in my palm and smeared paint across my cheek.

“Hey--!” 

Marco was cracking up so hard. “Holy shit."

I slapped my hand full-on to the side of his face, letting it make that wet squishy noise, in retaliation. Red and blue and dark green streaked across his cheek, paint in his eyebrow, paint at the edge of his mouth. I snickered.

“Ugh,” he laughed, pulling me towards him again and rubbing his face against the side of mine. 

“--No--”

“Mm!”

"Hey-- Y-- mmmpfh--"

“Asshole!”

We couldn’t stop laughing. There was streaks of paint in his hair, in mine, across his collarbones, staining into his sweater I had on, everywhere. I couldn’t stop kissing him. I was never going to.

 

*

 

The next day, I went to class. My cold wasn’t so bad, just annoying congestion and a thick headache. The sound of my dad’s angry voice over the phone stuck with me anyway. I would have gone even if I was dying.

There was still some paint left, even after I’d showered again. No one said anything, everyone was always covered in some kind of paint or ink. I left it all day.

A streak of red in the hair above my ear.

A perfect thumbprint of blue, right under the edge of my jaw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jean is the biggest nerd rocket in the history of the universe help
> 
> also, the summary lyrics are the only horse joke I will ever make in this entire series, so help me.
> 
> Thank you for reading !! <3


	7. Make You Feel My Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When the evening shadow and the stars appear, / and there is no one there to dry your tears, / I could hold you for a million years / to make you feel my love. / I know you haven't made your mind up yet, / but I would never do you wrong. / I've known it from the moment that we met, / no doubt in my mind where you belong."  
> \- Adele, "Make You Feel My Love"

****

November

“Hey, Jean.”

I glanced up from my art history textbook cracked open on the table in front of me. The activity in the dining hall was picking up now that classes were starting to be let out, and the sound pressed against my eardrums, but I heard Armin loud and clear. 

Of course I did. I’d trained myself, by then, to know exactly where my friends were at all times. I didn’t slip up. I didn’t forget. I was careful.

Armin and Eren sank down into chairs on the opposite side of the table. Armin made sure none of his art supplies were going to roll away before he smiled slightly at me. “What’s up?”

“Pretending to study for art history,” I replied, snapping my textbook shut.

I counted how many times I lied to my friends. And I relished it when I told the truth. It didn’t make me hate myself so fucking much. ‘Pretending’ was the truth, because I couldn’t focus on the names or dates of the art I was supposed to be memorizing.

I was too busy checking the time on my phone, because it was 6:17 and I was literally counting the minutes until I could see him again.

I was too busy dreading that it was already Thursday, and I would be going home for the start of Thanksgiving break tomorrow night, and I wouldn’t see him for more than a week.

I was too busy keeping up the pretense that I didn’t give a shit.

I was too busy looking forward to the second that we were alone together in our dorm, because it was exactly a month since I started going out with that big dumb freckly nerd, and all I wanted to do was kiss him. 

I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t say shit. And omission still counts as a lie, doesn’t it?

“Mikasa says it’s supposed to snow tonight,” Eren said suddenly, his thumb sliding over the touch screen of his phone. “Hell yeah, maybe we’ll get tomorrow off.”

The dread made my stomach turn.

“Awesome,” I said.

Armin looked up. “Oh, hey Marco.”

I kept my eyes on the textbook in front of me. My hands always got tight and tensed up when he was around, I knew that by now, so I shoved them into the pockets of my jacket. 

His backpack came first, dumped in the chair next to mine, and then Marco sat down on the edge of the seat and slumped an armful of paperwork onto the table. His cheeks were red from the cold, but he was smiling.

“Hi guys.” Marco studiously did not look at me.

I muttered a “hey.” My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest.

We’d been doing this for a month, but I still got scared. Especially around Armin. Every time I looked at him, I thought about my first day here, when he’d looked right at me in Mina’s and just... known.

You can see why I wanted to get the hell out of there.

“Internship stuff?” Armin asked excitedly about the paperwork.

Marco nodded, pushing it towards him.

“Ugh.” Eren wrinkled his nose at the papers. “I’ve got these things coming out the asshole. Where are you applying?”

Marco shrugged his jacket off. “All the illustration ones, but those are basically just getting artists’ coffee for twenty hours a week. And that studio gallery position that opened up, you know the place in the city that everyone is always talking about?”

“The one where all the artists host their own show every month?” Armin asked. “There’s a position open for that place?”

Marco beamed. “Yeah, and they’re looking for illustration majors because they’re hosting an illustration show, and it’s only a couple of stops away on the train. And it’s an every day thing, and it’s paid, and I’m stoked.”

I stared at the table. Trying not to cringe. 

If he got it, I would be so goddamned proud of him, but I would almost never get to see him. And I was an asshole for thinking about it like that, but it made my stomach hurt, so I tried not to think about it at all.

I honestly had no idea what was going to happen next semester.

When I saw Eren shooting dirty looks at the paperwork, I caught his attention and pointed towards the food, and he nodded. Together we got up, chairs scraping along the linoleum.

Marco stopped what he was saying mid-sentence and looked up at me with those wide, warm eyes. 

And I watched the process. The one we’d been going through for a month.

Marco always looked at me like he couldn’t decide if he was going to kiss me or smile at me. He looked at me that way in bed, and every morning, and whenever we were alone. I couldn’t get enough of it. I caught his attention and interrupted his homework just to see it.

But here, in front of everyone, it made me terrified.

I couldn’t get away from that feeling. Of exposure, of embarrassment and humiliation, of shame and fear. The way I had felt on the phone with my dad a month ago -- like when people looked at me, they didn’t see the Jean Kirschtein I wanted them to see. They saw me in my underwear and one of Marco’s t-shirts, standing in our bedroom, my most favourite place on earth. They saw everything I kept sacred and private and close to my heart, they saw everything I’d ever been afraid of, and that was the worst kind of torture.

I was terrified.

And Marco saw that. And he caught himself a few seconds later, changing his expression, transitioning smoothly from boyfriend to roommate.

But I always caught the flicker of disappointment in between.

I cycled through the emotions. Relief. Guilt. Love.

“You going to get food, bro?” Marco asked, relaxed like nothing had happened.

“Yeah.” I just walked away, my hands fists in my pockets.

I caught up with Eren and grabbed a tray, slamming it a little too hard on the line next to him. I saw him look me up and down, but I just focused on the food.

“You ok, man?” Eren asked after a while.

My stomach knotted a thousand times over.

“Tired as fuck,” I huffed. 

“Oh,” Eren said. “I figured you were just mad at Marco.”

My head jerked up. “Why would I be mad at Marco?”

“I don’t know. You guys don’t really talk anymore. And he’s wearing your beloved Punisher shirt, I figured that would rank up a few Kirschtein Pissed Points.”

I looked back across the dining hall. Marco was laughing, moving his backpack and talking to Armin, wearing a cardigan over my faded Punisher shirt.

I don’t know how to describe this feeling. I felt it a lot. 

Happy in the best way and terrified in the worst at the same time, I guess.

I wondered if Eren knew. I wondered if my best bro, the dude I played soccer with and drank gallons of coffee with, would still look at me the same if he knew.

It didn’t matter that he accepted everyone else no matter what their sexuality was. What mattered was that he might look at me like I wasn’t the same guy.

I tried not to let my voice crack. “Ah, it happens. We get our shit mixed up sometimes, you know. Black t-shirts.”

Eren shrugged. “Doesn’t really happen with me and Armin.”

“Well, we’re... slobs. Fucking slobs. Yo, cheeseburgers today.”

“Oh hell yeah.”

Eren and I headed for the other side of the dining hall, and I was panicking. I had to make myself stop, breathe through my nose, talk myself down. My best way of dealing with the anxiety for the past month had been holding on to Marco, but that wasn’t an option right now. So just fucking man up, Kirschtein.

“The graphics are supposed to be excellent,” Armin was saying when we both sat down at the table again. "On the new Beowulf movie, I mean.”

Eren intensified. “I’m so pumped about that movie, I saw the preview for it and looks like real life, my animation teacher showed it to us and I thought he was going to jizz. Holy shit.”

Marco was laughing. As he stood up, his hand brushed my thigh.

I froze. I didn’t look at him. I became extremely interested in my french fries. 

“It’s opening as a midnight premiere at that crummy little movie place a couple of blocks from here,” Eren was saying.

“We should go see it tonight,” Marco suggested.

I nearly choked on a french fry.

“Hell yeah!” Eren said.

“Want me to text Ymir and Christa?” Armin offered.

“Hell yeah. I know Mikasa will be down.”

“Someone figure out what the tickets cost,” Marco said as he walked away. “I’ll be back.”

Eren pulled out his phone. “Jean,” he said, “you’re going to shit yourself over this movie. It’s insane.”

I just nodded.

Suddenly, instead of spending the night trying to bite and kiss and lick the freckles right off my boyfriend, I was looking forward to sitting across from him without touching him, spending hours being scared of my friends and wondering if I was going to slip up and call him sweetheart. What the fuck was Marco thinking, weren’t anniversaries supposed to be sacred or something? God damn it.

Eren was relentless, still going on about the movie by the time Marco got back with his food. “We should just chill at Christa’s until the movie starts.”

“I’m thinking we should meet up later though,” Marco suggested. “Like 11:30? Because Jean is definitely about to tell us he can’t go because of our art history midterm tomorrow.”

Yeah, that was a good excuse, who goes to a midnight premiere before a huge test? I mean, not that it really mattered to me, but it was a way out.

“I have to study,” I grumbled.

Marco’s voice was warm. “No, you don’t. You’re going to ace it easy. But I definitely need to study, so if 11:30’s ok?”

Eren nodded. “11:30.”

They discussed plans, and then the movie, and I took it as an opportunity to not say a damn word. I was getting really pissed off.

But I was pissed off at myself. Because it was our month anniversary, and I couldn’t use that as excuse to get out of this. I couldn’t interrupt him and say, are you nuts? The only thing we’re doing tonight is making out and playing video games in our boxers, not shivering in a movie theater with Mikasa sitting between us.

It was my own fault. I deserved it. This was my own fucking mess. 

I stayed just long enough until I couldn’t take it anymore. I dumped my food in the trash and hauled my backpack onto my shoulder, offering a few words, a “see you at home” to Marco, and leaving. 

The cold air brought me back. It shocked me into calm, and I could feel the crispness it gets when it’s about to snow. My panic evened itself out as I thought of how I could fix this: I would just text Eren and say I had to study and sleep early and whatever, and Marco could come up with another excuse.

By the time I was in our room and shrugging out of my jacket, I was luxuriating in planning the exact text message I was gonna send to Eren.

Relief, guilt, love. Relief, guilt, love.

The sound of a key turning in the door came twenty minutes later. I slid off the edge of my bed as Marco kicked the door open with his foot. He dumped all his stuff onto his desk with a sigh of relief. When he saw me, he held up his hands in a sign of surrender.

“Look,” he said, “I know you’re mad--”

I shut the door behind him, grabbed him by two fistfuls of his jacket in my hands, and slammed him against the wall. I kissed him as many times as I’d wanted to all day, but couldn’t. I kissed him until his arms were around my neck, his fingers in my hair, and he was smiling.

“I know you’re mad,” he started again, out of breath. “But--”

“I’m not mad,” I breathed against his neck, pressing my lips to the corner of his jaw where I knew it would drive him crazy.

Marco shivered, his voice shaky. “-- But we’re gonna see that movie.”

I pulled away from him slightly just to glare at him. “Ok. I’m fucking mad now.”

He smiled at me, his eyes warm again.

I scowled. “Oh no. Hell no.”

“Baby,” he said softly. 

“No.”

“Baby...”

“What.”

“I barely saw you all day.”

I softened. I let go of the handfuls of his jacket and smoothed it across his chest, running my hands down to his hips.

Marco nuzzled his forehead against mine, brushing the tips of our noses, smiling, murmuring, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” I muttered, trying to continue frowning.

“I’m sorry I wore your shirt today, I didn’t even realize until halfway through my first class...”

Guilt weighed heavy on my shoulders. “It’s ok sweetheart.”

When he kissed me, it was tender, and I was smiling against his lips. 

Marco trailed more kisses down my neck. “You called me sweetheart, so you must be happy. Are you happy?”

I was, but between his mouth on my collarbone and his fingers trailing slow up and down the nape of my neck, I was fucking putty in his hands. I tilted my head back and made a noise that resembled a yes. When he smiled, I felt his teeth grazed so light against my skin.

“Jean,” he breathed.

“Huh?”

“We’re still gonna go see that movie.”

Oh god fucking damn it. 

Marco laughed when I pushed him roughly away and started swearing.

“You really fucking think I wanna go fucking sit in a cold ass fucking dark ass movie theatre, watch some goddamned dumb ass movie about fucking vikings--”

“The amount of swears in that sentence is impressive,” he intoned, pulling his jacket off and the cardigan underneath. Who wears a cardigan with a goddamned Punisher t-shirt? My dumbass boyfriend, the same guy who had everyone convinced that he was gentle and innocent and then just up and one day asks so nonchalantly if I want him to--

This idiot was driving me crazy.

Marco leaned back against the side of his bed, his arms crossed over his chest, a big dumb smile on his face, so dumb--

I was seething. “All I wanted to do was hang out with you and probably make out with tonight, ok? That’s all. Not this shit.”

“We can still do that, baby.”

“Not in front of them!”

“It won’t be in front of them,” Marco said.

I smacked a hand to my face. “How the fuck are you going to manage that when you just agreed to hang out with them all night?”

“Just wait and see, ok? I have a plan.”

“Fuckin’ plan,” I muttered, casting death glares at inanimate objects.

Marco chuckled. “Just trust me, ok?”

“Fuckin’ trust. Fuckin’ freckles.”

He came over to me and slid his arms around my waist. “We still have a couple of hours, do you want to keep arguing, or do you want to make out?”

 

*

 

Well, my answer to that question is pretty obvious.

My time always passes with Marco in a way that it doesn’t with anyone else. I could have just a few seconds looking at him, and they stretch out to days in the best way. But the hours we had before we went to meet up with our friends passed like minutes.

We had this frantic pattern. We were best friends and then boyfriends and both at the same time, we were 0 to 60 in under a minute, we were joking and then we were serious. We were urgent, pulling at each other’s clothes and doing lame shy teenager eighties movie stuff because we hadn’t gone all the way yet. And then we were laughing, lying on our stomachs in his bed and just talking.

Marco was telling me about his internship. I rested my head on his back and traced my thumb in slow shapes along his bare skin.

“It’s just going to be a lot of work,” he sighed. “I can’t wait, though. I can’t wait for next semester.”

I didn’t say anything for a long time. When I did, it was muffled in his shoulder blade.

“My parents haven’t paid for the tuition or anything yet. For next semester.”

Marco looked over his shoulder at me. “What?”

“They’re just waiting because they’re going to lecture me over break,” I said quietly. “It’s fine. It’s going to be the same ‘are you sure you want to keep making this mistake’ conversation, and I’m going to say yes, and there you go.”

Marco shifted underneath me and together we moved so that he was lying on his back. He was staring at me. I leaned down and kissed him on the mouth.

“Don’t,” was all I said. 

“You don’t,” he said softly. “Don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

He wouldn’t stop frowning.

“Marc, I’m not leaving, alright?” I ran my hand down his chest, tracing the freckles that I liked best, a cluster of them on his ribcage from when he’d forgotten to put sunscreen there as a kid.

Marco didn’t say anything.

“I’m not gonna leave,” I insisted. “I’m not even gonna leave this bed, I’m just gonna trap you here. You want to go to class? Tough shit. You’re hungry? I don’t care. We’re staying here forever.”

Finally, he smiled slightly. “We’re staying here until 11:30.”

I narrowed my eyes.

Marco glanced sideways at his alarm clock. “It’s 11:20.”

“I’m not going.”

“We’re going.”

“I’m dumping you. This is it.”

“And yet you’re still on top of me.”

“I’m gonna punch you.”

“Oh really.”

“I’m gonna sleep in my own goddamned bed.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

We both looked over at my bed piled high with my homework, canvases, paperwork, and some random dirty clothes. It hadn’t been touched in a month.

Marco darted a kiss to my cheek and took the opportunity to roll out from underneath me and jump off the bed. I groaned and buried my face in the comforter; he tossed my jacket on top of me.

“Don’t make me put your shoes on for you,” Marco said with a laugh.

Slowly, though, it stopped being funny. I got up and we got ready, getting quieter and quieter, mentally preparing. 

I felt like I should remind him not to touch me, not to look at me too long, not to say anything, not to do anything. But the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

Marco didn’t need me to remind him. He put my t-shirt back on, and his cardigan and jacket with it, he made sure he had cash on him, shoving his keys in his back pocket.. and every so often, I heard him take a deep breath. I heard him sigh.

Guilt, relief, love. Guilt, relief, love.

At 11:30, we were back where we started. Up against the wall behind the door.

We always did this. Even in the mornings. Knowing we had to go out there and not be together made it hard. Knowing I was the one enforcing it made it harder. 

It was all my fault.

But I had to do this. It was the only way I knew how to feel safe. It was the only way I kept myself from going insane.

We just held onto each other. My arms around his waist, palms flat against the small of his back. Marco held my face in his hands, one thumb tracing a soothing, slow path back and forth across my cheek.

“Some day,” he said very softly, “I’m gonna kiss you in front of everyone, and you’re not going to care.”

I leaned forward and kissed him. Slow, soft.

Kissed him so he didn’t see me cringe. The thought made my stomach hurt. I was letting him down now, and worse, I couldn’t imagine what he’d said actually coming true.

There was a loud slamming knock on the door -- Eren’s impatient fists -- and I let go of Marco immediately, taking a step back, changing. Thrusting my shoulders back, forcing myself to tense and then relax again, shoving my hands in my pockets. I wasn’t the guy who liked it when his boyfriend kissed his nose, I was the dude whose last relationship had been with a blonde cheerleader in high school.

Marco watched me for a long moment before he opened the door.

 

*

 

The movie theatre was crowded as hell for the midnight premiere. We were towards the back of the line, and it creeped forward; my group of friends stood there for a while, trying to talk over all the noise. Eren was explaining how pumped he was to watch this movie for the millionth time, Armin and Ymir were checking their pockets to make sure they had enough money, Marco already had his wallet in his hand and he was chatting easily with everyone but me.

I stared at the listings of movies out without really seeing them. It gave me something to look at besides the curve of his mouth.

And then I felt his breath on my shoulder. Too close, too close, too close.

“What other movies are playing at midnight?” Marco asked, his voice low.

I shifted uncomfortably away from him. “I don’t know. Bee Movie, I guess.”

Suddenly, his voice got louder. “What did you say, Jean?”

Everyone else turned to look at us. Marco wasn’t hovering so close anymore, and he had a straight face, but I could tell he was fighting a smile.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “I just said Bee Movie...”

“Jean wants to go see Bee Movie instead,” Marco said to our friends.

What in the shit--

Eren looked at me like I was insane. “You’re gonna pass up Beowulf for a movie about a bug voiced by the guy from Seinfeld?”

We shuffled closer to the ticket vendor, just one more person away. I gaped at him, shocked, not sure what the hell he was doing--

“You know,” said Marco thoughtfully, “I wanna see that one, too.”

“WHAT.” Eren was outraged. “BEOWULF IS SO COOL, THOUGH.”

Marco shrugged. “I don’t really like blood and gore.” And with that, when we reached the front of the line, Marco slapped a twenty dollar bill onto the counter. “Two for Bee Movie, please.”

I was a little dumbfounded at how smooth he was. Damn.

He turned around with the tickets in his hand, and gave me one. “We’ll see you guys later,” he said with a smile. “I hope your movie is good.”

“I hope there’s bee fucking in yours!” Eren said, more pissed about Beowulf not getting its proper due than he was that we were leaving.

Marco turned to me, nonchalant. “I’m gonna go get seats. Don’t want it to be packed or anything. You should get popcorn and stuff.” And with that, he headed for the lady checking tickets at the top of the stairs.

I wheeled around to see everyone look at me, shocked as I was.

I managed a shrug. “I don’t know, man. But he already bought me a ticket, so...”

“So just come with us anyway!” said Eren.

“I don’t want to leave that idiot by himself in the stupid bee movie... I’ll see you guys later.” I headed for the concession stand, Eren swearing behind me.

I was too dazed to focus, so I just bought a shitload of stuff, candy and popcorn and a huge drink that came free. The ticket lady had to pry my ticket out from between my fingers to rip the stub off because my arms were so full. She directed me to the last door on the left of the long hallway; the dingiest one, where they put the movies before they dropped out of theaters. 

Because who the fuck goes to see Bee Movie at midnight on a Thursday?

No one, that’s who. When my eyes adjusted to the dark of the theater, I realized that Marco was the only one in the entire room. The previews had already started; it was just gonna be me and him.

I found my way towards him in the dark, sitting down heavily in the rickety chair next to his and opening my arms so he could take some of the candy.

“Yes,” Marco said, “I love these caramel things.” 

“You are the most subtle and unsubtle freak I have ever met,” I said faintly.

“I told you I had a plan,” he grinned, opening a candy box.

“I could kiss you right now,” I said very quietly. I could barely make out the silhouette of his face when a preview ended and the screen went black. 

“Well, since no one’s around, and no one’s really going to be... You could.”

The hope in his voice. And the fact that he was right, the only person who might come in would be a theater employee. And it was so dark.

I swallowed hard. Then I reached out and touched where the light was cutting the very edge of his face. Leading my fingers carefully across the line of his jaw, tilting his chin towards me, running a path along the rim of his lips with my thumb...

I kissed him lightly. And when I pulled away, I heard him smile.

“One small step for man, right?” he whispered. 

My heart felt too big for my chest. In a bad way. In a good way.

“You better not eat all of those caramel things,” was all I said. 

“What other kind of candy did you get?”

“I don’t even know. A fuck ton.”

“Awesome.” When the beginning of the movie flashed onto the screen, I could see him beaming.

God, I just wanted him to smile like that all the time. Even if this was scaring the shit out of me, even if my palms were sweaty like a damn twelve year old.

We were doing this. I was doing this. It was a thing.

“I’m not gonna pull the cheesy arm move,” I warned him, my voice hushed.

“Good,” Marco replied, chewing on caramel. “‘Cause I’m doing it.”

“What--”

“Shh.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “Accept it. Accept the cheesy.”

I shuffled closer to him and reached over for the popcorn. “You gonna cop a feel, Bodt?”

“I might.”

 

*

 

What the fuck is Bee Movie even about? I don’t know. We sat through the entire movie, straight through to the credits, and I don’t know. 

All I could see was him.

We had slouched low in our seats, his arm still around me, slumped against each other across the armrest. There was a heap of popcorn in my lap that he had been steadily throwing at me over the course of the movie, and my hand was on his thigh, and we’d eaten all the goddamned candy, and I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want it to end.

The lights came on in the theater, and my mouth went dry.

We didn’t move. Marco squeezed my shoulder; he could feel me tensing up. 

Anyone could walk in. But who cared? What would it matter if a random person I would never see again walked in right now?

I’d spent too many years of my life being afraid. I didn’t know how to stop.

I stayed as long as I could stand it. Until the door of the theater swung open, and I let go of Marco and stood up immediately, the popcorn and wrappers in my lap dumping all over the floor.

The janitor pushing a cart of cleaning supplies stopped in the doorway and gave me the most tired, disdainful expression he could muster.

“Really, kid?” he asked. 

A dark, hot blush crept across my face. He was just mad about the mess, but I bowed my head like I was a little kid and my dad had just caught me misbehaving.

“Sorry,” I said over and over. I grabbed my coat, stuffing any candy wrappers within reach into the pockets. “I’m sorry. Sorry.”

“Hey...” Marco had stood up too, and he put a hand on my shoulder--

I shrugged away from him and shuffled down the aisle of seats, offering the janitor another muttered, “sorry,” before I was out the door.

Marco followed me, catching up and walking alongside as we headed down the stairs to the main entrance. He didn’t touch me; he kept his hands in his pockets, and his voice low.

“Breathe,” he told me. “It’s ok. It’s alright. You’re ok.”

I didn’t say anything, but he helped. We moved a little slower, a little more relaxed. Plunging outside into the bitter cold got me breathing again.

Fuck that guy. The janitor. What did it matter? He hadn’t even noticed.

Marco kept a good space between us and watched me, biting his lip. We stood outside the movie theater for a long time, saying nothing; people came and went from the movies ending at different times. They moved around us.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally.

Marco shook his head. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. It’s...” I tried to keep my voice steady. “Are we gonna wait until the other movie finishes?”

“No. I already texted Eren. I told him we left an hour ago.”

I remembered him pulling his phone out of his pocket in the dark of the movie, but I was surprised. He’d thought about it ahead of time. I couldn’t stop living moment to moment with him, happy and nervous and guilty in a steady beat.

After a minute, I asked, “what did you say?”

Marco smiled a little. “That there was actually bee fucking photosynthesis in the movie, and you got up and left.”

After a minute, I laughed. Shaky and unsure, but a laugh. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know. I just told him we were gonna walk home,” Marco said. And we started doing just that, falling into step on the sidewalk, moving through pooling light from the lampposts overhead. The town that our campus was built into always seemed so dead at night -- it was so quiet this late, and the farther we got from the downtown where the movie theatre was, the less people we saw. Soon we were walking through a more residential area, and we were the only people outside.

It was dark, but not dark enough. We were alone, but there were lights on in the windows of the houses, and I didn’t know how to not feel them watching.

Marco’s voice was hushed. “Are you ok?”

I swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“Tonight was a successful experiment,” he said.

Because I sat in the dark with you? Because I panicked when the first person came within twenty feet of us? I felt shame spreading through my veins.

Marco brushed his fingertips against mine as we walked. When I didn’t object, he laced his fingers through mine.

My heart was heaving in my chest. My head started to hurt. But there was no one around, and I was holding his hand, and I was trying so goddamned hard. I wanted to hold his hand.

“Bee fucking and photosynthesis,” I said suddenly, my voice cracking a little.

Marco looked up at me, surprised. “What?”

“That’s what you said to Eren... But bees pollinate. That’s not photosynthesis.”

He squeezed my hand. “Ok, smarty pants. I knew that. I was just joking. Photosynthesis is the wind sex thing, I got it. I remember biology.”

I snorted. “Wind sex? Photosynthesis is when the plant gets--”

Marco pulled me by the hand to face him, and he kissed me. 

He always did that when I was ranting, or lecturing about something, and I wouldn’t shut up. He always did that even when he didn’t have a reason. I loved it when he did that.

But I pushed him away from me and let go of his hand.

Marco took a few steps back, surprised, his eyes wide.

My whole body tensed up. It was two in the morning and no one was around, and I was trying so hard to make it not matter, but it mattered.

I had been afraid too long. It was just a knee-jerk reaction.

But I saw the look on Marco’s face.

Disappointed. Upset. Concerned. Because even when I hurt him, he was still worrying about me.

God fucking damn it.

I was so fucking angry with myself that I thought I was going to explode.

And he thought I was angry at him.

“Jean,” Marco said quietly. “Jean, I’m sorry.”

“No,” was all I could gasp out.

I meant no, don’t be sorry. I meant no, it’s all my fault. I meant no, don’t think you did anything wrong for one goddamned second. I am the reason. I am the wrong one. But I couldn’t get the words out.

Different words were rising in my throat. Words from a month ago, from the scrubbed out tiles in the shower stall. The words I was going to use to leave him.

I don’t want to do this to you. I can’t do this to you. I don’t want to be the reason you have that look on your face, I want to be the guy behind bars because he killed the person who made you feel like that.

It was all my fault, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

I just turned on my heel and started walking, too brisk, back to the dorm by myself. I heard him following me, his long legs faster and carrying him farther than mine, and he caught up easily. I just shoved my hands in my pockets and forced my mouth shut so the words didn’t spill out.

I’m not going to do this to you.

I’m not going to do this to you.

Marco’s voice caught in his throat. “Don’t be mad at me, please, I just thought-- we had a really good night, and there’s... I’m sorry...”

He was apologizing for wanting to have a normal relationship. He was apologizing for wanting to hold my hand. He was apologizing for being himself, and I was doing this to him, it was all my fault. God, my baby. 

I’m not going to do this to you.

We made it to the dorm. We made it up to our room. We made it until the door was closed and locked behind us. Not a word.

My voice cracked when I spoke. “I’m not... I can’t...”

I’m not going to do this to you.

I can’t do this to you.

Marco sat down on the edge of his desk. I shrugged my jacket off, and my hoodie along with it, suddenly too hot, too angry to be stifled like that. 

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I know you can’t deal with the public thing, I should have respected that, but I just... We said we would try, and tonight was great... I just wanted to try.”

“I can’t,” was all I said. “I can’t do this.”

“You can totally do this, you just--” then Marco faltered.

I stared at the floor.

“Did you say you can’t do this?” he asked.

Say it, Kirschtein. Fucking say it. Do this for him.

“You deserve better than this.” My voice was barely there.

“Are you trying to break up with me?”

I didn’t respond.

“Jean, are you doing this because you don’t want to be seen with me?”

When I whipped around, his eyes were wide. Hurt. Afraid.

“I just...” Marco swallowed. “If you don’t want anyone to know you’re dating me, if that’s the reason...”

I nearly fucking flew across the room to where he was sitting, took his face in both my hands, and kissed him. My whole body felt like it was heaving with guilt and shame, because I’d made this wonderful, wonderful person feel like shit.

I couldn’t handle it.

I was breaking up with him, and I was kissing him.

Marco’s hands came up to mine, holding them to his face.

After a long moment, I forced myself to pull away. I made sure there was enough space between us. And then I told him the truth.

“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to do this to you. I don’t want to put you through what everyone else put me through. You deserve better, you deserve everything, and -- and if you’d just stayed with Thomas...”

“Are you fucking serious?”

I was completely serious. At least that douche canoe could do this for him.

“It’s going to take me a long fucking time, Marco.” I told him the truth, and it hurt, and my head felt cloudy. “I know that. I don’t want you to have to hang around and get hurt. I don’t want to treat you like shit, because right now, that’s exactly what I’m doing, and I just... fuck. I don’t know.”

“Jean,” Marco said.

I couldn’t look at him.

“Jean.”

The guilt and shame and fury were overwhelming and huge, washing over me in waves, and I didn’t know what to do anymore, I just --

“I love you,” Marco said.

I looked up at him.

“I love you.” His voice was steady. “I love you, Jean. And this isn’t how love works. I’m not going to just take off and wait until you’re perfect. And you don’t get to leave because things are imperfect, and you think that it will hurt me. I’m in this. I’m here. And you leaving would hurt me so much worse. There’s no going back.”

“You love me?” I asked softly.

Marco cheeks blushed deep red, and he smiled slightly. “Of course I do.”

He just flipped a switch in me. And for a moment, my mind was quiet.

I rubbed the back of my neck, my face burning, my cheeks hurting because I couldn’t stop smiling. When I moved towards him he stood up, and when I wrapped my arms around him he met me halfway, holding onto me tight. 

“I love you,” I mumbled. “I love you. Fuck, I love you.”

I’d been thinking it for weeks. It felt weird to say it out loud.

Marco buried his face in my shoulder. “Can you stop trying to break up with me now? Please?”

I pulled away, but just enough to tilt his face up and kiss him. That was my yes.

He moved to the rhythm of it and deepened it, and I’d been so mad and terrified, and now my head was clear, and I was home. It was him. It was always him.

We were urgent, but not like all the other times before. We kept this steady pace of intensity, and it built and it built and it built, and it was him, and it was me. And this time, we didn’t hesitate, we didn’t flip flop between desperate and relaxed, funny and frantic.

This time, we didn’t stop.

 

*

 

I’m not going to tell you about our first time. Because it’s something personal you have with that person forever. Because it was sexy and romantic and intense and a little awkward and funny and incredible and holy shit--

Really, I’m not going to tell you about it.

I mean, I’ll tell you right now that you should definitely always date someone who seems gentle and innocent because fucking holy goddamn--

Ok, let me start over. I’m not going to tell you about our first time, because Marco is private about this kind of thing, and I’m respecting that.

If you’re reading this, I’m sorry sweetheart.

I’ve been crazy about you since the beginning.

 

*

 

We woke up naked next to each other. That was actually pretty funny. 

What wasn’t funny was dragging our asses to class, and eventually, to the art history midterm that I had pretended to study for. Whatever.

I was dealing with the inevitable swing, from good to bad. From “I love you” to the phone call I got from my dad at lunch, telling me he would pick me up after my last class at the end of the day. I tried to balance, I tried to keep my head above water, but in the moment I had alone with Marco in our room before art history, I was irrational. I was gasping.

I was trying to figure out how I was supposed to sit in the car with my dad and not have him know -- just KNOW -- about everything. About the night before. The thought of it made everything feel dirty and shadowed and terrifying, and I just--

Marco wasn’t gentle when he hugged me. He held me tight, pressing every part of him to every part of me that he could reach, and he buried his face in my hair.  
And he hugged me hard like that until my breathing had leveled and the closeness helped so fucking much. 

I told him I loved him every time I saw him. If that happened to be in public, in the dining hall or on our way to class, I texted it to him after. Sometimes I’d slide my phone open and find he’d already texted me.

And that was what got me through.

It kept me going when I was packing. It kept me going when my dad got there, and we hauled my stuff into the trunk of his car. It kept me going when I had to raise my hand in a wave and offer a stupid, pathetic, masculine, “see ya later, man.”

Sitting in the car with my dad was hard. I considered pretending to sleep, just as an excuse to not be overwhelmed with fear, but my dad kept talking. 

I was drowning.

So when my dad pulled into a gas station and got out to pump gas, I risked it.

My dad wouldn’t hear. He wouldn’t have to know. I could come up with an excuse. I was too desperate not to. 

I called Marco’s phone.

It was only around eight o’ clock, he would be with the guys, or playing video games, or... I don’t know, I felt bad for interrupting his life, I--

He picked up on the fifth ring, and his voice sounded thick. “Hello?”

“I love you,” I said.

I heard him sniffle. “Hi, boy. I love you, too.”

My stomach knotted. “What-- are you crying? Marco...”

“Shh. Shut up. You know I’m a wimp, I’m fine. It’s natural, or whatever.” 

Agh. I tried to make him feel better. “Well, you did cry at Bee Movie.”

Marco groaned. “I didn’t cry at freaking Bee Movie...”

“I’m pretty sure you did.”

He sighed. “I love you.”

“I love you, too... I have to go.” My dad had put the gas cap back on the car.

“Are you still in the car?”

“Sitting at a gas station.”

“Good luck. It’ll be fine. I love you.”

I hung up and shoved my phone in my pocket just as my father got back in the car. He was sorting through his receipts, folding them and putting them in the money clip on his wallet. He didn’t look up at me when he spoke.

“Who was that on the phone?” he asked casually, in English.

There was no way he could have heard my conversation, could he? My best option was to tell the truth, because I could play it off. Just my roommate, calling about the mini fridge.

“It was Marco,” I replied, trying to keep my voice light.

My dad looked at me. “Vous dites à votre colocataire ‘Je t'aime’?”

You tell your roommate ‘I love you’?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy cliffhanger batman
> 
> This is the longest chapter in the entire Wist/FMN series and that is because my Jean does not shut up
> 
> also psst my french speaker darlings I can kinda feel that last line is wrong, so any help is appreciated!!
> 
> thank you everyone for being so wonderful all the time... see you next thursday <3


	8. Sugar We're Going Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Am I more than you bargained for yet? / I've been dying to tell you anything you want to hear / 'cause that's just who I am this week.../ Is this more than you bargained for yet? / ...Drop a heart. Break a name."
> 
> \-- Fall Out Boy, "Sugar We're Going Down"

There is a length of time. A few seconds. That’s all you get to decide.

You sit there, sweating in the passenger seat, and decide if you’re going to tell the truth. Just do it, hash it out, get left on the side of the road if that’s what it takes. But you tell the truth. You stand up for yourself.

Or you could lie. Sugarcoat it, make up a big one that will keep you safe. You could do it and in one smooth motion protect what’s most important to you. You just fucking lie.

I could say that all these texts were from Mikasa; Marco was still only listed in my phone as ‘M.’. I could say that she’d called me with his phone. Change ‘boyfriend’ to ‘girlfriend.’ Him to her. It was so easy.

The words choked me. And we sat there, my dad and I, both staring out the windshield of the car. Frozen. Silent. More time passed, stretching and awkward and terrifying.

You get only a few seconds to brush it off and say no, I don’t love my roommate. Come on, Dad. And if you wait too long -- if you sit there, your throat closing up, all your words wilting like flowers on your tongue -- then the silence counts for more than any lie. 

Too many seconds pass, and your silence becomes a yes. I love this boy.

I took too long.

I opened my mouth to speak, and my shoulders tensed, and I could feel the bruises that Marco’s fingers had left the night before. Aching and sweet and making it so much more frightening. So much harder. 

But I said it.

I cleared my throat. “C’est une farce. Je plaisante. Ça ne veut rien dire.”

It’s a joke. I’m kidding. It means nothing.

I said it in French, so he’d know that I was serious. But I said it too late; I waited too long. My silence said more than I could have, and me and my dad--

Well, me and my dad speak English and French. Sometimes German when I’m with my grandfather. But we are most fluent in silence. 

And my dad understood me.

He kept staring out the windshield. His fingers worked, compulsive, folding the receipt from the gas pump in his fingers, slowly, smoothly, until it was a sixteenth of its first size. 

“It’s nothing,” I said in English. My chest felt like I would never take a deep breath again. I was praying. It’s nothing. I’m nothing. Please.

My dad didn’t say anything. He flicked the receipt into the cup holder and started the car. His hands were steady on the steering wheel as he pulled out of the gas station and got back on the highway.

He was silent.

And I understood him.

His brain was working, moving like a lawyer, like the stellar defense attorney that he was. Analyzing everything, choosing what was important and smoothing over what was not. My exact words -- my statement, the only thing that could be reviewed as evidence -- well, I’d denied it. I’d said no. And no matter what I might have implied, the only thing that stands in court are the words. So he could pretend the silence had never existed. The jury would never hear about it.

I watched him reason me away. I watched him take me at face value, the teenager who was always quiet anyways, so what were a few more seconds of silence? I watched him decide not to see me, and only see the part that would comfort him.

And underneath the terror and the small nagging hope that he might actually address it, I felt relief.

He only looked over at me when my cell phone vibrated with a text message. I shoved my phone back in my pocket and didn’t dare answer it. I knew it was Marco. And my dad looked away, taking one hand from the steering wheel to turn on the radio. He didn’t want to see. 

I slumped down in my seat and stared out the window, pulling as stereotypical of a teenager pose as I could. I put my blind fucking panic in a box, then into an even smaller one, in the very back of my mind. I saved it for later.

My dad and I avoided the whole thing together. Like we were watching a football game, like other fathers and sons do. This was our bonding.

We broke the silence slowly. Deliberately. He asked if I wanted to listen to anything on the radio. A few minutes later, I asked when my brothers were coming home. Emile was driving up on Monday; Olivier couldn’t make a flight home because of his work at the hospital. And soon enough we were talking again, like we were before, maneuvering around each other, never touching the subject before.

I was terrified. I was confused. I was pissed at myself for lying. 

He denied me his anger and his acceptance. He didn’t yell. He didn’t even acknowledge it. I don’t even know if he was just making a fucking joke, I didn’t even know what he’d actually heard from my conversation-- I was never going to know.

But for now, I was relieved. The topic was finished. He’d made it nothing. He made me nothing.

And when you’re nothing, you’re safe.

 

*

 

The rest of the car ride was uneventful. I looked as relaxed as I could. Inside I was scattering into a thousand pieces. Every so often my phone would vibrate, and I knew it was him sending a random joke he’d found or ideas for homework he wanted to run by me. An ‘I miss you.’ A picture. We always texted like this, periodically throughout the day, because we were thinking about each other.

I didn’t deserve it. So I ignored it.

I had lied. I’d brushed him off. It was one thing to just keep it private from our friends, to do it by omission, but the first time I’d been confronted about us, and I lied. I made him nothing, just like me. Do you know how fucked that is?

I didn’t deserve a picture of him falling asleep. I deserved to sit in that car in the dark, too tired and hyper-aware, terrified.

I was losing my shit -- the boxes where I’d put the fear were bursting open in the back of my mind, peeling at the seams, and I couldn’t take it much longer. I asked to pull over at one of the burger places along the highway, keeping my voice as calm and cool as I could. While he was ordering food, I told him nonchalantly that I was going to the bathroom.

I went into the handicapped stall of that dingy restaurant, locking the useless, broken latch on the door just for the sake of it. And I slammed my back so hard against the concrete wall that it knocked the wind right fucking out of me. I finally had a good reason to be struggling for breath. 

The bruises on my back and shoulders ached so bad, but they were the marks he’d left on me in the dark with hands that were desperate to pull me closer. Hands that wanted me, hands with freckles on the knuckles; hands that wanted me even when I was shaking, and every time he kissed me the night before, he told me he loved me.

I needed it. I needed the pain. I needed to remember. It made the emotional bullshit easier to deal with. And I left that bathroom aching but in control. I made it through the rest of the car ride without going completely nuts.

Pulling into the driveway of my childhood home was strange. The sound of the gravel under my dad’s tires was the same. The flood light that shuddered on at the motion was exactly how I remembered it. And I fell in along with them, shouldering my duffel bag and slamming the car door shut, making my way to the back door in the dark without having to see where I was going. I knew the path.

I knew the way I fit into this house. I went up the stairs to my bedroom on the second floor. Threw my duffel on the floor, rooting through it for pajamas and shower stuff and a towel, throwing discarded clothes in a pile on top of my bed.

The only sign that something was different was the black Spiderman t-shirt, a size or two bigger than all my shirts, that smelled like paper and shower soap and home.

I threw it with the rest of the clothes on my bed. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve much.

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the stark white porcelain bathtub, the shower head drumming water into the bruises on my back.

It was like I had never left.

 

*

 

Let me explain my fear to you.

Everyone in my family is fucking terrified of themselves. 

My grandparents were immigrants and worked their asses off to get here. So the fact that my family is influential and powerful at all is an amazing thing: my mother is the head of a couple of non-profit foundations in the city, and my father is one of the defense attorneys for the governor of New York. But with power comes fear of losing it, so we watch ourselves. We watch what we say. We present ourselves as well as we can at all times. We wait until we’re in private to express our real feelings, if we ever express them at all. 

Do you see why I had a hard time from the very goddamned beginning?

My mother is terrified of losing control. What my father doesn’t understand, he avoids. And my brothers, they were easy, they were idiot boys who grew up together, relatively close in age. They’re incredible, Ollie with his research trials and Emile getting huge opportunities as a defense attorney all over the state.

I’m the youngest. I was the one chasing after everyone else. And I was the one that my parents couldn’t understand. So they did what they could -- my mother patronized, and my father avoided. And it changed my life.

When I was six years old, my cousin Annie came over to play. She brought all her dolls with her, and I sat with her because she was quiet and I liked it; she supplied me with Ken dolls while her Barbies went off and did important business stuff without men. That was fine by me. I picked two Kens with shitty nineties haircuts and made them talk about man stuff, like baseball and the alphabet. And then I made them kiss, because they were friends and they liked the same stuff and that’s what happened in the movies. 

And then my dad walked in the room and saw me.

He didn’t say a word. He took the dolls out of my hands, gave them back to Annie, and just turned away. It wasn’t too far off from what had happened in the car.

Except I didn’t understand. I just knew that I had done something really bad, so I ran up to my bedroom before he even had to tell me to. I knew that he was mad, because I had done something bad. But I didn’t know what it was. So that made me awful. 

I waited for hours. I waited for him to come yell at me, or hit me, or something, anything. I was waiting for him to explain what I’d done wrong, at least. Was it boys kissing? What was wrong with that? 

My dad never came upstairs. Emile had to come get me for dinner.

Once you start thinking you’re bad, that’s what you are. And that’s the worst thing you can be when you’re little. It worked through me like a poison. It stayed with me.

When I was in second grade, the rules of Valentine’s Day changed up from the year before. Not everyone had to give everyone else a valentine, so the cards you got were from people who wanted to give them to you. All of the ones I got were from girls. I was so disappointed. But I was a bad boy for even thinking like that. I dumped all my cards in the trash when I got home.

I grew up. ‘Bad’ changed to ‘wrong.’ And you already feel so goddamned wrong in the first place when you’re going through puberty and all that bullshit. But when I was in seventh grade and I fell in love with the captain of my middle school’s baseball team -- the gross, unrequited stolen glances pizza-face kinda love; the sitting next to him in math class and staring at his one patch of chest hair kinda love -- I was disgusting. There was something wrong with me. Wrong. I could barely look anyone in the eye, afraid that they knew, afraid that they’d hate me.

My first long showers. My first anxiety attacks. 

My brothers are good men. But they were high school kids once, too, the products of a homophobic, competitive environment. And they didn’t know what it meant to me when I listened to them talk about the weird kids in their classes, and call them faggots.

I was terrified that my brothers would look at me and realize I was the weird kid. I was the faggot. So my first year of high school, my favourite word was faggot. It was something we laughed about together, so no one would laugh at me. We even got my dad to start saying it. I encouraged him, I wore it out, I made it mean nothing, because I wanted to mean nothing.

I can have relationships with girls. A lot of my sexuality is based on how I feel about a person, so their gender doesn’t matter as much to me as my connection with them. It’s why I know that about myself now. But when I was young, all I knew that I was wrong. I was wrong to think about anyone but the girls on the cheerleading squad. So I was angry all the time, and I went from girlfriend to girlfriend, and nobody really got where I was coming from, and everyone ate that shit up. Jean’s so rad, man. He doesn’t even give a shit, if a girl isn’t good in bed, he dumps her. Check out this tattoo he’s drawing for me, I’m getting it done in a couple months.

My friends were my hype team. They hid my sexuality better than I ever could have. I assigned myself small spaces -- my shower at home, the last stall in the bathroom on the second floor of my high school -- specifically so I could press my back to the wall and deal with the anxiety without having to look over my shoulder. I neglected and insulted and hated that part of myself. I avoided it. I did what my father had taught me to do. And then I squared my shoulders, went back to class with my bros, and not one of them questioned me. Not once.

I spent the night of my prom in the shower. I couldn’t stomach the thought of catching myself staring at the guys in tuxedos instead of the girls in low-cut dresses.

I stopped calling everyone faggots because hey, I grew the fuck up. It wasn’t cool. And it made me sick when I heard it aimed at one specific person. 

There was only one guy in my high school who was openly gay. He dyed his hair bright pink, and wore high heels every day. He terrified me. He was so fucking brave. When I heard a couple years ago that he killed himself, I was devastated. It happened just a few months after Marco and I got married. 

It hurt me so bad. I never thanked him. He was the first person in my life who showed me that who I am is something to be proud of, and not just something to fear and ignore.

My fear was being that kid. Being terrorized and degraded and disrespected for something that I had no control over. My fear was watching my brothers laugh at me, watching my mother sever ties with me because she didn’t want it to affect her social status, my father never saying a word. My fear was that tiny, cataclysmic shift that happens whenever someone finds out you’re gay. Even if they’re totally accepting. Armin, Eren, my friends who were important to me. I didn’t want them to look at me differently.

My fear has been here my whole life.

So I sat in my shower and I cycled through it for an hour. I sank back into how I always felt when I was at home. Hopeless. Like it would take a miracle worker and a fucking shovel to dig me out of this hole.

And then suddenly I realized that the miracle worker himself had been texting me all night, and I’d been ignoring him. Choosing to ignore him.

I got out of the shower and scavenged for my phone, tugging the Spiderman t-shirt over my head as I went, the smell of it soothing me more than the shower had.

My Marco. My sweetheart.

He’s a fucking idiot when he’s tired. 

And he’d been staying up to hear if I got home alright even though he was exhausted. When I finally found my phone and sat down on the edge of my bed, I was scrolling through hazy, sleepy text messages and dumb jokes he’d found on the internet.

**M: (9:49 PM) thank u for calling.**

**M: (10:38 PM) ok but what sound does a pterodactyl make when it uses the bathroom**

**M: (10:39 PM) NONE BECAUSE THE P IS SILENT**

**M: (10:43 PM) I just spilled soda all over myself laughing i swear 2 god if u don’t laugh**

**M: (11:18 PM) i hope it’s ok i’m eating all ur leftovers in the mini fridge, the dining hall closed and i’m starvin**

**M: (11:37 PM) I’m gonna hope u not answering is a “yeah sure babe go ahead” because i found a burrito and i’m eatin it**

**M: (11:46 PM) ur taste in burritos is like a good taste in fine wines bravo sir**

**M: (12:22 AM) the bedroom feels really weird and big without u and thats a dumb thing to say but the burritos are making me feel things and i miss u**

**M: (12:30 AM) I love you and I hope you know that whatever happens, I’m here.**

**M: (12:43 AM) OK BUT WAIT**

**M: (12:44 AM) Ophelia gives Hamlet a puppy for his birthday and tells him the dog is just like him, and Ham gets offended and goes R U CALLIN ME A BITCH and Ophelia is like IT’S A GREAT DANE, YOU ASSHOLE**

**M: (12:48 AM) my mom is gonna kill me for hitting the texting limit again**

The last text was from just a few minutes ago. I shuffled under the covers of my bed and slid my phone’s keyboard open.

**J: (12:56 AM) first of all, I can’t believe you ate my burritos. Second of all, I can’t believe you will sit there and type ‘pterodactyl’ but not ‘you.’ Third of all, I love you. Fourth of all, we could webcam so you don’t have to text.**

M: (12:59 AM) ur alive!! and do you want to?

**J: (1:02 AM) if you want to. I’m soccerfan88.**

I was already climbing out of bed again, plugging in my laptop charger and scrounging for my headphones. My dad was asleep in the next room, and my mom was probably going to come home sometime soon from whatever event she was hosting for one of her foundations, but if we webcammed, I wouldn’t have to say anything... I could just type, and make sure my headphones were in...

I was desperate. I couldn’t pass up the chance to talk to him.

**M: (1:05 AM) ur gonna laugh at my username**

As soon as he sent me that text, the notification from the webcam program popped up on my laptop’s screen. 

“Robodt616 has added you to their chat list. Accept or Not Now?”

Oh my god. Robodt.

I was still shaking my head when the image of him appeared in a half-screen over the chat. Marco was lying on his stomach in his bed, his chin in his hand, the laptop in front of him. He looked so tired, but he smiled when our connections lined up and my image appeared in the little box in the corner.

I started to type.

**soccerfan88: your username is almost as bad as that pterodactyl joke.**

The sound of Marco’s laugh was tinny and too loud in my headphones, but it was him.

“I knew you’d like that joke,” he said, grinning on screen.

**soccerfan88: I’m just going to type. Not talk. dad in next room.**

Marco bit his lip, then nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?”

What would I tell him? That my dad might know, but my dad might have always known, that it meant nothing when it really meant everything--

**soccerfan88: no. it’s ok. what have you been doing?**

I stared at him while he talked, watching his hands move, his dark eyes tired but laughing and focused on me. His hair was messy...

And he was wearing my red beanie.

It made me smile.

 

*

 

Saturday

I didn’t wake up until almost noon the next day. It felt so weird, but considering Marco and I had stayed up until five in the morning, it was well-deserved. 

I woke up awkwardly twisting and cuddling around pillows and my comforter instead of a boy. That was the strangest experience out of all of it. How do you go through your whole life alone, then forget how to do it after only a month with him?

I spent the rest of the day waiting for freckly sleeping beauty to wake up, avoiding my parents, wandering around my house and feeling like a complete stranger. Even more so than usual. I forgot where things were supposed to go and never remembered to turn off lights. It was so weird, but college does that to you.

Marco made me feel better. We went on webcam again while he packed to go home. I didn’t let him go until he had to, until his mom got to the dorm and his youngest stepsister was bouncing around the bedroom. And even then, I sat there, silent, and watched him smiling.

Even though he was sidetracked by his family, Marco took the time to say goodbye. He still made sure he looked at me and said, “I love you. I’ll talk to you later.”

I raised my hand in a wave and didn’t say a word.

 

*

 

Sunday

The same.

Except Marco was home, and constantly doing stuff with his family, so we didn’t even text that much. And that was fine, I respected that.

But when you go home, you fall into your old patterns. I regressed. My words got harsher. My silences were longer. I criticized myself more. I felt stupid. I was hyper aware and then suddenly numb. I was completely avoiding my parents. I was Jean from high school again, and the only thing that shocked me back was when I went on webcam late that night, and Marco coaxed me out of it.

Even then, it took me a while to remember how to speak like myself. And even then, I wasn’t speaking aloud, I was typing.

All I could give him was silence.

 

*

 

Monday

Emile came home. He gave me a crushing hug and made excuses about being so far away all the goddamned time, towering a foot over me and laughing when he thanked God that Mom wasn’t home. He didn’t want to have to deal with her hassling him about why his hair had gotten so long.

He seemed so comfortable with doing something that went against what our parents wanted for him. I missed him. We hung out while he unpacked. 

When he asked where Ollie was and I explained that he wasn’t coming home, the first thing Emile said was, “ugh. Stupid queer.”

I forced myself to laugh.

I didn’t cam with Marco that night. I told him I was going to sleep.

My words were disappearing.

 

*

 

Tuesday

I hung out with my brother. I remembered what it meant to be myself -- the self that shattered into fractured pieces and constantly felt like I was making too much noise, laughing too loud, and trying too hard to never be discovered. I loved my brother, and the only thing I knew how to do was lie to him.

The only person who saw how shitty I felt was Marco. 

“Jean,” he said softly over the webcam that night, his voice in my ears. He slouched in his bed at home, frowning and watching me, the covers wrapped around his bare chest. “Jeanbaby.”

**soccerfan88: what?**

I couldn’t even say that out loud.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Marco asked. “Or do you want me to tell you another dumb joke?”

No one was ever going to understand me the way that he did.

**soccerfan88: joke.**

 

*

 

Wednesday

It was actually impressive how long it took my family to finally be in the same room together.

It was just dinner.

But it was a battlefield. One of those setups from World War I, where everyone sits perfectly still just a few feet away from each other, waiting for the bombs to start flying and trying not to flinch. 

My mom started with Emile. She smiled when she spoke to him, and the whole conversation was in English. She was proud to be an American citizen, and she hated when my dad used any other language. That was her whole thing, being good citizens, making our country proud, shit like that. 

They talked about his school, about his internship, about being pre-law. 

I sat there, listening, proud of my brother, wondering if everything was all just a crock of shit in my head. If my family was really supportive, and I was just too jaded and selfish to see it. If it was all my fault.

The worst kind of people are the ones who reassure you that they’re on your side before they destroy you. 

Emile sat back in his chair and said, “sometimes I wish I’d just gone to art school like Jean.”

“Don’t say that,” my mom replied sharply.

I looked up from my dinner plate, surprised. When she met my gaze with eyes the same colour as mine, my face started to burn.

“I just meant that at least Jean seems like he’s enjoying himself,” Emile said slowly, backtracking. “I mean, either way, we’re all gonna end up using our Bachelors’ degrees as coasters when we’re working at Starbucks.”

“Oh no,” my mother said firmly. “You’re going to be successful no matter what. Even if you have to transfer, or quit, or I don’t know what.” The smallest, awkward hint of her German accent came out.

She was looking at Emile when she said it. But she was talking to me. Why would she tell him to transfer from an Ivy League? What was she really referring to, if not my shitty own college decisions?

And the T word. For once, I wasn’t going to let that slide easy.

“Mom,” I said suddenly, “I’m not going to transfer.”

“Have you thought about it?” she asked lightly.

“No.”

“I want you to do your best,” she said. “I don’t know if ‘your best’ is at a school where there aren’t any finals.”

“There are finals,” I insisted. “I just got my assignment for the final of my painting class, I have to paint a portrait of another student without using references or anything, just them posing for me. This painting is going to count for like half of my grade.”

“Are you going to paint your roommate?” my dad asked quietly.

It was the first comment he’d made the entire dinner. It was the first time he had looked up from his plate. And he was staring at me.

“I don’t know,” I stammered, looking away. “Either way, I’m not going to transfer.”

“You’re going to do what’s best for yourself and this family,” my dad said evenly. “Even if that means leaving behind certain ideas about life you seem to have.”

It was so open. A gaping wound, a smoking bomb shell in the middle of the table. He didn’t elaborate, he didn’t go in for the kill; he just let those words smoke. 

I took it. I surrendered. He was right.  
And my mom, god fucking bless her, she’s German. It was in her blood to ignore the damage done in war and just keep going and going. She acted like what my dad had said meant nothing. She went on in a completely different direction, carrying the conversation away with all the ease and elegance she had in her.

My heartbeat felt hollow. My stomach was tight. I barely heard anything she was saying, it didn’t matter. As soon as dinner was over, I was out of my chair and going up the stairs to my room. 

And I just sat on the edge of my bed for a long time, playing dinner over in my head like an old war newsreel.

My dad was right.

I tried to put it out of my head.

I was waiting for Marco. I was waiting for someone to tell me my life wasn’t just a big old fucking joke. Because finally, I had someone who could say that to me, and for a while, I could believe him.

But when he finally came on webcam, I was awkward. I was jerky and too harsh and sparse with my words. I didn’t know how to communicate, I didn’t know how to tell him what had happened, what I was feeling.

It took me hours before I could say that I was sorry.

“Sorry for what?” Marco asked, rubbing his eyes.

**soccerfan88: for getting you into this**

**soccerfan88: it’s all just a fucking mess**

Marco shrugged. “Well, we’re not a mess. Everything else is.”

I stared at my lap, rubbing the back of my neck. 

“Here,” Marco said suddenly. “Do something for me. Lie on your back-- just lie down, and move the camera-- yeah. Like that. Ok. Now close your eyes.”

I did what he said as he talked, lying flat on my back, my arm folded behind my head. The laptop was tilted next to me so I could still see him, but I closed my eyes like he said.

“I know you don’t want to talk,” he said softly, “but just do this for me, ok?”

I swallowed hard, then nodded.

“Pretend we’re in bed. In my bed, like we always are,” he said. “I’m sitting right next to you. I just kissed you.”

Without even thinking about it, I bit my lips, looking for the taste of him.

I felt stupid. But it helped.

“Ok,” he said. “Now tell me something that makes you happy.”

“You,” I said out loud, my voice hushed and low.

“Ugh. Sappy. Something else.”

“Sex.”

Marco laughed. “That counts as the same thing. Something else.”

I thought about it. “Painting. Pizza. Soccer.”

“You just have to get through the next few days. Then we’re gonna do all of those things, and everything will be fine.”

Everything wouldn’t be fine. I felt like I was waiting for the bomb to go off, waiting for everything to blow. Waiting for the one wrong step I would make that would cost me everything. I could feel it.

But I tried to listen to him.

**soccerfan88: I love you.**

Marco leaned his chin in his hand. “I know.”

**soccerfan88: I love you more every day.**

“I know, baby. You keep telling me that.”

 

*

 

Thursday

Thanksgiving was never spent at my house. We always went somewhere else -- my mom had so many connections all over the place, and Thanksgiving was the best way for her to honor them. The actual meaning of the holiday was a little fuzzy, considering my dad was second generation and my mom came over to America when she was nine. 

That year, we headed into the city, for an impressively expensive apartment on the Upper East Side. Yeah, brilliant, right -- going into New York and trying to navigate the streets while the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was choking the whole island. 

That’s how dedicated my mom was to her connections. Sometimes I wondered if she was actually Italian, with that mob mentality. If someone prestigious and well-connected invited her over for dinner, she’d sit in the car for hours.

And that’s what we did.

At least she didn’t make Emile and me wear matching ties like she did when we were little. The dress shirts were bad enough; I hadn’t worn anything mildly designer since I went to school. She gave me a dirty look when I rolled the sleeves up to my elbows as soon as I’d put it on, but I had to rebel in at least some way. The only good part about dressing up like that was Marco’s reaction when I sent him a picture. Ha. 

I kept my phone on silent, hidden in my pocket. I wasn’t going anywhere without him. I wasn’t going to make it through a whole afternoon of talking about golf and fundraisers and court cases my father had been involved in, not if I didn’t have Marco.

We’d been sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in the city for over two hours when my mom suddenly swore under her breath.

My dad looked over at her from the driver’s seat.

“Melanie asked me to bring butter,” she said. “I forgot.”

“We’re not going back,” my dad said.

“Schiesse,” she muttered again.

“I’ll go,” me and Emile both said at once. We looked at each other in the back of the car, and mutually, silently agreed to do whatever we could.

“There’s a convenience store back there,” I added. “We just past it.”

Emile nodded. “We can just get out and walk to the apartment building.”

Whatever it took to get the hell out of that car.

After a minute of considering -- another minute where the traffic didn’t move -- my mom turned around in her seat and handed Emile the embossed business card with her friend’s address.

“Don’t get something cheap,” she said, resigned.

We didn’t even wait for my dad to pull the car over. There was no point anyway, with the traffic like that. Emile and I both threw our doors open and climbed out, abandoning our coats, not giving a shit that it was cold. We didn’t care that we looked like prep school douche bags with shiny shoes and slacks and skinny ties, because for a few minutes, we were free. Emile grinned at me like we were conspiring little kids, and we started walking towards the convenience store.

“Ah shit,” he laughed, “I forgot to ask for money.”

“I’ll go half with you,” I said as I pushed the store’s door open with a clang of bells. “I’ll strip for it if I have to, I don’t care.”

I was just glad for that one moment of freedom. 

Emile laughed again. “Mom lets you out of her sight for ten minutes, and you’re stripping for butter. What the hell do you get up to at art school?”

Just as soon as I’d soared high, he dropped me low again. 

I tried to laugh it off, but any more words stuck in my throat. Instead I focused on finding the butter, shuffling through the cluttered aisles of the store until we found the coolers in the back. I nodded politely at the police officer standing there, scruffy and annoyed. He shot my brother and I a wary glance before he turned back to examining the prices of milk.

“Did she say which one she wanted?” Emile asked, looking at the cooler.

I shook my head. “Why are there so many different kinds of butter...” 

“Let’s just tell them we got so confused that we wandered around aimlessly for hours,” Emile suggested. “Butter coma.”

I snorted. “We can’t mention it. We’re going to Melanie’s, remember? Her husband is a chef. He’ll make us sit there and lecture us for four hours about butter.”

“Ugh,” he groaned. “Don’t remind me. I really don’t want to spend all afternoon with that fag.”

I flinched. And then I saw, from the corner of my eye, the police officer glance over at us again.

Emile kept talking. “If I have to sit through one more retelling of how Gordon Ramsay liked his restaurant, I’m gonna puke. Gordon Ramsay probably gave it to him up the ass, and that’s why he likes him so much. Fucking queer.” 

My brother always did this. Instead of calling someone stupid or pathetic, he called them gay. They meant the same things to him.

But the police officer was staring at us now, and when he spoke, his tone was furious.

“Hey, kid,” he said. “Do yourself a favor and shut the fuck up.”

Emile looked up at him, shock frozen on his face. After a minute of hesitation he switched back to his most polite voice. “Is there a problem, officer?”

“Yeah,” said the cop, his accent thick. “Your fucking attitude. I’ll tell you right now, it’s assholes like you who make my job easy, you know that? Rich white boys walking around like they own the goddamned place, spewing homophobic bullshit.”

Emile raised his eyebrows. “I’m not homophobic--”

“The second you start throwing those words around and acting like you’re better than someone because of who they love is the second you’re nothing but homophobic garbage to me. Garbage. And I’m off the clock, kid, but so help me, I hear one more slur out of your mouth, and I’ll book you for discrimination right now.”

“Who am I discriminating against?” Emile asked, his voice rising in fear.

I stood next to my brother and thought, me.

Marco.

And my heart was soaring, because the cop got even madder.

“Karma’s a bitch,” was all the cop said. “And she doesn’t give a shit about who you choose to love. All she cares about is how you take care of other people. Just remember that before you start running your mouth again, asshole.”

“You don’t even know me,” Emile spat.

The cop laughed to himself. “Theo Michaelson, NYPD. Police officer for the last twenty years of my life, and believe me, kid. I know you. I’ve seen way too many of you hanging around, and I won’t hesitate to take another one of you off these streets. Look me up, file a report on me, take my name. I don’t give a shit.”

Emile went silent. That was the second threat of arrest, and he didn’t challenge it anymore. Even if he was angry, he was still a law student.

Theo Michaelson grabbed a gallon of milk from the cooler, tugged his wallet out of the pocket of his uniform, and nodded at me. “Have a nice day, he said, and walked away.

We were both stunned into silence for a full minute after the cop left the store.

Emile yanked the door of the cooler open with too much force, his face burning bright red. He grabbed whatever mildly looked like butter and slammed the door again.

“What an asshole,” he muttered.

I couldn’t even get a hold of myself long enough to try and agree, or at least make a noise. My heart felt too big and too warm for my chest. I was stunned, I was...

Ecstatic.

A stranger had stood up for me. He didn’t know he was standing up for me, but he was. That big beefy cop who had probably never been called a fag in his life had just called my brother out. Not because he was scared or hiding anything. Just because he thought that my brother was wrong.

And he didn’t think that I was wrong.

And he made it seem normal. Like my brother was the asshole, the exception, and everyone else was just trying their best to live their lives, not caring about sexuality or anything.

I let Emile talk about it, swear about it and try to reason the cop’s anger away as we left the shop and walked towards the apartment building. I let him, because it was proof that I hadn’t just imagined the whole thing. It really happened.

I floated through the rest of the day. I found the chef’s lecture on butter mildly interesting. Whenever I looked at my dad, I kept hearing the cop’s words.

Karma’s a bitch, and she doesn’t give a shit about who you choose to love. All she cares about is how you take care of other people.

It gave me courage. It gave me fucking hope.

It was five minutes with a stranger. But it was the first time someone in my life someone treated being gay like it was normal. Like someone could look at me, and know who I really was, and still see me as a person.

I will never forget that. 

And sixteen years later, when Marco and I were picking names for our son, the only name I could think of was Theo.

 

*

 

Friday and Saturday passed quick. Because I had filled my requirements of family time on Thanksgiving, and everyone left each other alone after that. I spent Friday night on webcam with Marco, and the words weren’t so hard to find.

And I said them out loud. I was quiet as I could be, but it was out loud. It was a step. And whenever I felt self-conscious or nervous, I thought about the cop.

When Emile knocked on my door and asked me who I was talking to, I said my best friend. I wasn’t ready for that yet -- the courage that the cop had given me was new and fresh, and it was going to take me a lot more than just five minutes of acceptance to get to the point where I could ever tell my brother about Marco. Even if I reached that point with myself, I still didn’t know if I ever could with him.

But I said he was my best friend, and that wasn’t a lie. And Emile just shrugged and wandered away without comment.

I sat back down on my floor where I’d splayed out my sketchbook and pencils, and put my headphones back in.

“Was that your dad?” Marco asked, on my laptop screen.

I shook my head. “My brother. And you just wasted a question, loser.”

“What-- no.”

“That’s how twenty questions works,” I smirked. “You ask a question, that’s your question. Tough shit.”

“Ugh.” Marco smacked a hand to his forehead. “Ok, fine. It’s your turn then.”

I thought about it for a minute, the pencil in my hand tracing lightly across the page of my sketchbook. “Where do you want to live after college?”

“New York City,” he said without hesitation. “It’s always seemed so amazing. It’s where you go when you’re an artist. And plus, you’re from there, and I like your accent.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t have an accent.”

Marco tried not to laugh. “You have an accent, babe.”

“What the hell, I do not--”

“My turn.” When I fell silent, boiling, Marco smiled at me. “Ok, my question is, if you weren’t going to do art for a job, what would you do?”

I bit my lip and thought about it for a while. 

And I thought about the five minutes in the back of a convenience store. And I thought about how one moment with a stranger had more of a positive impact on me than a whole life with my family. And I thought about how I wanted to do that for someone else.

“I would be a police officer,” I said quietly.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

 

* 

 

My brother drove me back to the college on Saturday night. He wanted a couple more hours to spend with me since he wouldn’t see me again until Christmas, and I just didn’t want to get in the car with my dad again, so it worked. The ride was funny, and it wasn’t so tense.

Mostly because every time he threw around a slur or a joke, I squirmed in my seat and wondered if he knew, getting sick to my stomach -- and then I remembered the cop’s words. And I held them like an amulet.

The door of my dorm room closed behind me, and I was home. My first deep breath in over a week. I was myself here, with paint stained clothes and friends and my boy. The thought of transferring was just a sick joke when I stood there.

I readjusted, taking a quick shower then throwing myself into my homework. It made me happy. It gave me peace. 

And when I fell asleep in Marco’s bed, I was ok.

Marco got back to campus the next day, late afternoon, bursting through the door with his arms full of stuff like he had the first day. I was sitting at my desk doing homework, but within seconds I was moving towards him, and he dropped his stuff on the bed and opened his arms, and we hit hard and hugged hard. I caught him in my arms so tight I lifted him off his feet.

Marco laughed, mid-breath, surprised. He kissed my hair. 

“The door is still open,” he murmured. 

“I know,” I said, my words muffled in his shoulder.

It was bothering me. But I left it open. And I kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	9. Say Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And I am feeling so small. It was over my head / I knew nothing at all. / And I will stumble and fall. I'm still learning to love / just starting to crawl... / And I will swallow my pride. You're the one that I love / and I'm saying goodbye. / Say something. I'm giving up on you. And I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you."
> 
> \-- A Great Big World, "Say Something"

Alright. We’re gonna do this. We’re just gonna get it over with.

Writing this thing has been so weird. I haven’t talked about college in years, and never to this extent.

I mean, I expected hashing it out again would be hard. I knew it was going to hurt. I just didn’t realize it would feel like I was reliving it.

I’m writing this sitting in bed right now -- the bed that we bought when we first moved up to Vermont, the bed that we will probably never get rid of. And my house is finally quiet. My monster baby I call a son finally fell asleep, and Alex is camped out in the living room, discussing her subtraction homework with the dog. 

And my old man is next to me, lying on his stomach and steadily ignoring the pile of invoices for the shop spread out in front of him while he doodles on sticky notes. 

He makes soft grumpy noises whenever I lean over to kiss him. You know, because I’m distracting him from his important business and work and stuff. 

I keep kissing him anyway. His hair, his shoulder, his eyebrow, his lips when he turns around to yell at me. Once I get a mouthful of his thick nordic cardigan, and he chuckles at the noises I make. But I don’t care. Whatever I can reach, I kiss.

I’m turning thirty eight years old this April, and sometimes I still get scared the way I did when I was nineteen. But it’s like a nightmare, I just have to open my eyes and remember that I’m here. I’m safe. He’s here. My family is alright. 

I kiss him to make sure. It’s better than pinching him, I think he would get mad.

I might pinch him anyway. 

Writing this made me remember. It made it all come back. It made me fall in love with him again. Over and over and over. 

And now, I have to write this part.

I have to. It’s important. I was so stupid and afraid and confused. I was so fucking young. And you never think that the split second decisions you make will be the biggest decisions of your life, but somehow, they always are.

I have to write this because if I didn’t make the decisions that I did, then I wouldn’t be here now. 

I lean over to pinch Marco, but he knows exactly what I’m doing; he catches my fingers in his grip, makes a loud sighing sound, and shuffles around on the bed. He ends up with his head in my lap.

“Better?” he murmurs, pulling his neglected paperwork towards him.

“Hmm.” I stroke the hair back off his forehead. I can feel the heat of his skin through the comforters, and I am calm.

I balance my laptop on a pillow next to me. It’s going to be a bitch to write this at such a weird angle, but it was going to be a bitch anyway. The only way I’m going to be able to do it is with him here.

Let’s just get this bullshit over with.

 

*

 

There were three weeks between when we got back from Thanksgiving break and the end of the fall semester. Three weeks. That’s it.

I’ll tell you what I remember. The parts that stick out to me the most. 

I remember the blur of being back with him. Of finding our rhythm again, of getting back in our routine. I woke up next to him and fell asleep with him, I counted seconds waiting for my classes to end just so I could pass him in the hallway and say hi. 

That’s all I would say. Hi. But it was more than I would have said before break -- when I was steadily ignoring him, afraid of anyone looking at the two of us the wrong way -- and Marco would smile at me as he passed. 

I would have done anything for that smile. Anything to not see the disappointment and insecurity flash so brief across his face whenever he had to remind himself not to touch me. Not to hold my hand while we sat in the dining hall. As if it was his fault we were doing this. Like I didn’t want him. Jesus, it made me fucking hate myself. 

So I tried. I tried so goddamn hard to be ok with being open. I tried to be ok with myself. I kept the cop’s words in my head at all times, repeating them like a spell in my head, hoping that I would be ok, that I could do this for him. I tried.

On Sunday, I left that bedroom door open. It was nothing, but it was everything; anyone could have walked by and seen. 

On Wednesday, when Eren asked if I wanted to hang out, I said I couldn’t, because I was chilling with Marco. I didn’t say anything else; I fought the urge to explain exactly what we were doing, where we were going, basically outlining every reason why Marco was just a friend. I kept my mouth shut, and Eren didn’t question it, he just shrugged it off and headed to class. 

It was nothing. But it was everything: it was me suggesting that I was putting Marco ahead of other friends, other responsibilities, everything else. And that’s how fucking pathetic and scared I was, watching what I said down to the word. But I did it.

On Thursday, Marco and I went to the library to study our notes for the Art History essay we had due at the end of the semester. And we were fucking around, because he had already pretty much finished his and I didn’t even care about mine. I could knock it out with no problem. So the trip to the library turned into us stifling laughter and flinging shit at each other across the desk dividers--

And going into the reference section on the third floor to make out.

It was on the top floor, where the books were older than the library and the dust was so thick that Marco kept sneezing. No one ever came near there, no one was even on the that floor with us. 

It was two college idiots macking in the stacks. It was nothing. It was so inconsequential. It would have just been a fun thing to do for anyone else, something to take their minds of their homework.

My heart was pounding the entire time, and not just because of Marco’s hands on me. It was the first time I’d let him kiss me somewhere public. 

The anxiety made me feel like shit afterwards -- I was wishing for more and relieved that it was over at the same time. Which is so stupid, because I can never get enough of kissing Marco. But I couldn’t make my hands stop shaking.

He saw. He saw, and he held them in his, and he kissed my fingers, and he couldn’t stop smiling. I held on for that. I fought the panic for that. I sat back down in my seat and looked as normal as I could, flipping the pages of my notebook and Art History notes without seeing them, trying not to wonder if anyone else could feel the red, blushing heat on my collarbone his mouth had left. I just tried to focus on my homework.

And I remember sitting there and, bizarrely, out of nowhere, looking at my essay and thinking, I don’t give a fuck.

Not about the kissing thing. I gave way too much of a fuck about that one, I think that’s pretty clear.

I meant school. I meant my essay, my classes, focusing enough to write it well, getting it right, managing a good grade. I didn’t care. I hadn’t cared in a long time, but in this weird parallel moment where Marco was sitting three feet away from me working carefully, and I could still taste him on my lips -- I just didn’t care.

And by Friday, this thought had caught like a spark. 

I tried to ignore it. I tried to focus on what I loved about art school the best -- the endless free time to paint, the conversations I could have with other artists. But when it came to making lists of why I wanted to stay at the college, Marco was always at the top of them. 

My focus always came back to him. I would have foregone breakfast and dinner on that Friday and Saturday just for a few minutes more in our bedroom with him. The more I thought about leaving the college, the more I wanted him. By the end of the week, I was starving for him. Reaching for him whenever the bedroom door was closed. Licking my way up Marco’s body the way the flames of the doubt licked up mine. 

But that was the whole problem.

There’s just... I don’t know how to describe it. There’s a difference between wanting to be an artist and wanting to attend art school. From the get go, as long as you’re creating art, you’re an artist; I was never going to lose that passion for it. It was never not going to be the way I expressed myself. But attending art college is different. It’s forcing yourself to break down and rebuild everything you know, it’s devoting all of your time to abstract ideas that you don’t necessarily want to explore. It’s losing any time you had to do personal art because all of your supplies and money are spent on homework. It’s so frustrating, because the only thing that validates all of these sacrifices and compromises is the future it’s leading to: you get to walk out of that place a professional artist, selling your art and getting clients and building your name up and I don’t know. A bunch of things. 

I’d never even thought that far. I never really wanted it. I just wanted to paint until I figured it out. And by Saturday night, I had figured it out. 

I just kept hearing the city cop’s words in my head -- the part, most specifically, about how all that mattered was how you took care of other people. And I kept thinking about what that cop had said to me, and I kept thinking about what I’d said to Marco over the webcam...

And I kept thinking about the look on my parents’ faces if I told them that I was thinking about transferring out of art school to become a police officer.

I didn’t say anything to Marco. We had enough to fucking deal with as it was, trying not lose our minds over finals. Trying not to lose each other in the stress of pretending, lying, sneaking. Trying not to blow through the entire box of condoms my brother Emile had bought me as a joke. 

My internal thoughts were muddy and pointless and fucked up, and he didn’t deserve to be the receiving end of the aftermath. He didn’t deserve to be weighed down so heavy by an idiot like me, who didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

I remember just sitting there in class on Friday and deciding to focus on nothing but Marco. I tried to keep going, to be more open, to get better than just sneaky kisses and open doors.

It bit me in the ass. 

There’s only so much fear you can hold off. You can only do it for so long before it overwhelms you. Before there is nothing but fear.

It was Sunday. I remember it was Sunday, because everyone had homework, and it was already like ten o’clock at night, but we were all sitting in Eren and Armin’s dorm room bullshitting anyway. The desperate, tired, funny kind of bullshitting that you only get to feel when you know you’re procrastinating big time. 

The beginning of that night was one of my favourite memories with my friends at college. It was also one of my last. And I’d been trying all night not to force myself to freak out, because I was trying. 

Marco was right next to me, sitting on Eren’s desk because I had taken the chair beside it. This was the closest I’d let him be to me when we were around our friends. And when Ymir cracked a joke or Eren started arguing with Mikasa about a completely random topic that no one else was really trying to follow, I didn’t hear it. I was talking to Marco.

Just talking to him. Simple. About nothing. But I was always so afraid that one of us would slip up and forget in front of our friends that I almost never talked to him when we were in a group. 

Marco was beaming at me. He was keeping his distance, and every so often he would pause before he spoke to make sure he didn’t let anything slip. To make sure he didn’t call me baby. But he was smiling at me like that, and even though I kept glancing sideways at the rest of my friends, and even though my stomach was knotting and I had my arms crossed over my chest, trying to make it look like I didn’t care... I don’t know. His smile does things to me, it still does. It was the only thing that made it worth it. It was the only thing that made me stay where I was.

That, and the fact that everyone else was so busy screwing around and talking about random things -- everyone was so caught up in their own finals tailspin -- that no one was really paying attention to us. 

Except Ymir.

“Careful, Marco,” she said lazily from her spot on Eren’s bed. “Your big gay crush on Jean is starting to show.”

She said it like a warning flare being shot into the sky. From far away it was nothing but something pretty, funny, pointless. No one else understood.

But to me, it was danger. It was fear knotting in the pit of my stomach and all the blood draining out of my face.

Ymir smiled at me.

Marco leaned back on his hand, his long legs swung over the edge of the desk. “I’m pretty sure we all know I’m a big gay already,” he said easily.

“Good point,” said Ymir. “But the question is, does Kirschtein know how much you’re crushing on him?”

Marco shrugged and looked down at me. “I don’t know, do you?”

It was all so casual. My friends had conversations like this all the time, declaring their undying love for each other, who cares?

My words felt like glass in my lungs. They stuck; they bled; they wouldn’t come out.

Eren snorted. “You look like you’re going to catch on fire, dude,” he said to me.

“Ymir,” Christa said, her voice chastising. “Don’t make it awkward for them, they have to live together. Jean is straight, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” said Ymir. “Sorry, I’ve just been waiting patiently this whole time for Marco to profess his undying love to Jean, your friendship is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Marco shrugged, smiling slightly. “You caught me. I adore him. Saw him once, and boom, that was it. Love at first sight, and ever since.”

“Don’t tell Thomas that,” Armin said wryly.

Ymir snickered. “I keep forgetting about that kid, oh my god.” Then she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and whined, “Come on Jean, tell your cute baby roommate you love him, too.”

“I don’t,” was all I said. My voice harsh, the words short and sharp.

I saw Marco turn his face towards me from the edge of my vision, but I was staring at the floor, trying not to fucking panic. 

“Ouch,” said Eren. “Damn. It’s just a joke, dude.” 

I didn’t even respond to that, there was nothing I could say, Marco had just told my friends that he loved me, and I was not ready for this, it didn’t feel like a joke, everyone had laughed but I was drowning, and I had no idea how not to. And then I caught Marco’s gaze, and just..

The hurt in his eyes. There and gone after a few seconds, smoothed over and replaced like it had never been there. 

I broke his heart, and with that look on his face, he broke mine.

“That’s what Thomas was for,” I said quietly.

Nobody else understood -- they launched into a conversation about Thomas, about how annoying he was and the sculpture studio, and soon enough they were talking about teachers and classes again, and I was safe. Nobody understood; they thought I meant Thomas was the one Marco should love, not me, because I’m straight, and I’m just his roommate, and no thank you. I don’t want it.

But Marco understood. He knew that I meant that Thomas would have treated him better than I ever could.

I was the biggest fucking asshole on this side of the planet, and my boy was sitting right there next to me, and I’d dismissed him and denied him and wished his ex-boyfriend back just so he wouldn’t show me affection in public.

Marco waited a good ten minutes. He didn’t turn towards me again. Then he stood up, sliding off the top of the desk and pulling his keys out of his pocket. “I’m gonna go start my homework, guys. I’ll see you later,” he said lightly.

Eren groaned. “Don’t go, that means we’ll have to do homework.”

“You probably should,” Marco advised. Then he looked at me when I cleared my throat and stood up. Not for too long -- a glance, then back at his keys.

I tried to make my voice sound normal. Bored, resigned, whatever people feel when they’re not terrified all the goddamned time. 

“I’m coming with you,” I said.

“You don’t have to,” Marco said to the floor.

“You’re the one who brought keys,” I replied, my tone short. 

Even admitting to planning something in any way with him -- that we might have talked beforehand, that we might have done anything together -- it was too much, too terrifying, too exposing. 

Because I’d tossed my keys at my desk this morning and missed it by a mile, and they fell down between the desk and the bed. Because I never went and got them. Because I was too busy smushing my hands over Marco’s face and kissing him so he would shut up and stop laughing at my crappy aim. Because only a few minutes ago, I had been smiling, doing ok, fighting the fear -- and now, I felt like it would cripple me.

I was so scared. It was so irrational. It was so deep and inherent and a part of me. I was nothing but a caged animal, hurting anyone who came near me, even if they were trying to help. Even if they loved me.

I remember my friends resuming their conversation as we left like nothing had happened.

I remember the walk from Eren and Armin’s to our dorm was silent, and the space between us was fucking huge.

I remember Marco not saying a word and staring, staring, staring anywhere but me.

Everything I wanted to say, I couldn’t say. We were on the sidewalk of the main street, and then we were in the lobby of the dorm with a bunch of people hanging around, and then we were in the elevator with another couple who could barely keep their hands off of each other. And Marco just stared ahead, at the numbers on the elevator’s screen as we steadily rose to our floor.

I was so afraid. Every step I’d taken forward since I got back from break had doubled itself back. I didn’t say a word until we were in our room, and the door was closed.

My voice cracked. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

He’s one of the only people I apologize to in this world. And I will say sorry for the way I treated him until I’m dead. It will never be enough.

Marco just turned his back to me, his hands moving, and I realized slowly that he was getting stuff together to do his homework; he slung his painting flannel over his arm, scooped up containers full of small tubes of gouache, a handful of paintbrushes clasped in his hand. 

He was going to do his homework. Like nothing had happened.

When I had finally stopped pretending, he had learned to start.

“Marco.” My voice was rough. “Stop. Stop, ok?”

“No,” he said very quietly. “You stop. I agreed to this, I let you do this, that’s how things are.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “You’re fucking-- you’re clearly upset--”

“I get upset,” Marco said softly. “It happens. This isn’t a new feeling. It’s fine.”

This isn’t a new feeling.

I hated myself so much right then, to the very depth of my core. So much that I couldn’t speak.

“I overstepped,” he continued as he dumped the supplies in his arms on the desk. “I made a joke, I was trying to steer past it but I went too far, and I’m sorry.”

“You’re apologizing to me?” I managed finally.

Marco still hadn’t looked at me. “I know you don’t want it, I know you don’t want our friends to know, and I overstepped-- I just-- I thought we were doing better, and you said you were trying, and it’s already December, and you were doing really good, and I just. I thought we were there. I thought you were getting there.”

I didn’t answer.

Just the thought of coming out to my friends made my mouth dry.

But I was failing him. I’d caught the December part -- he meant that it had been more than a few weeks. That he had been ok with our situation for a while, but he wanted -- needed -- was hoping for more. And I couldn’t give it to him.

I couldn’t give him what he deserved.

All I could say was, “Marco...”

He shook his head, and for a long time didn’t speak. He still hadn’t turned around. I could see the freckles on the nape of his neck when he bowed his head.

Marco’s voice was small, and it cracked and wavered with tears when he said, “was it really that easy to tell everyone that you don’t love me?”

He swiped the back of his hand across his eyes, rough and quick and embarrassed like a little kid, then went at the stuff on his desk with new vigor, distracting himself with the paint.

There was nothing I could say. There was no optimistic hope I could offer him, or promise that I would get better. I couldn’t even give it to myself. There was no way that I could get across to him how much I loved him.

I loved him, even though all I ever did was hurt him.

I told him in the only way I knew how to best. I came up behind him and pressed myself into his warmth, wrapping my arms around his torso, one hand holding him to me and resting, palm flat, over his heart. I buried my face in his shoulder, and breathed him in. 

I shouldn’t have hugged him, I should have given him his space or tried to communicate like a normal fucking human being. I hurt him and then I held him and that was one of the cruelest things I’ve done in my entire life. But I loved him. I loved him, and he was hurting, and it was my fault--

And when Marco swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and leaned back into my grip, his hand came up over mine on his chest and I felt his fingers still damp from the tears.

I pressed my lips to his neck, then let go of him and made him turn to face me. I took his face in both my hands and wiped his tears away with my thumbs.

Only then did Marco look at me. We stared at each other.

Finally, he shook his head, his nose nuzzling into my palm; he pulled me closer with his hands on my hips, and I kissed him, I kissed him, I kissed him. His lips, his cheek, the edge of his jaw. His forehead, his eyelids when they fluttered closed.

“I love you,” I said softly. “I adore you. Saw you once, and boom, that was it. Love at first sight, and ever since.”

I gave him the exact words he’d said to our friends. I gave them to him in a whisper, muffled against his skin with a kiss, in the only way that I could.

It took me years to realize how cruel that was. To reassure him, to make him think that I wasn’t going anywhere was one of the worst things I could have done. But in that moment, I couldn’t imagine anything that would make me leave. I genuinely thought...

I genuinely thought that I would never let go of him.

“‘M sorry,” Marco mumbled.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” You are perfect. You are everything. 

I kept kissing him, my hands sliding down his neck and across his shoulders, shrugging his jacket off and wrapping my arms around his waist. My fingers slipped under his shirt, and I pressed my palms flat to his back, holding him so close. 

Marco tipped my chin up with his finger and kissed me on the lips, steady and gentle. His arms came up around my neck and his fingers threaded through my hair, his thumb stroking a path down the short buzzed part to the nape of my neck, so gentle it made me shiver. 

The warmth of his mouth. The taste of his tongue. The soft sigh of his breath and how it curled into a moan when I kissed his neck and nibbled at the edge of his collarbone. If I’d had words before, they were gone. 

I just kept going, and the silence was broken only by the soft sound of my mouth on his skin and the groans that caught in Marco’s throat.

I kissed him everywhere.

I worshipped him. 

I started at his neck, at the v between his collarbones just visible above the neckline of his shirt. Then I pulled away from him, just long enough to lift his arms over his head and peel the shirt off; Marco came back to me immediately, his hands in my hair again, those whiskey eyes shut tight.

God.

The freckles that swept across his shoulders. The deep warm tone of his skin. 

His sturdy chest, his muscled arms, the smooth hollow of his stomach. 

I kissed everything. Slow and steady, so fucking tender. I pressed my lips to the surprising constellation of freckles that spread beneath his rib cage, the ones that I liked best; to the hard ridge of his hips where they dipped below the waist of his jeans, and the dark line of hair that trailed between them. I kissed him with the purest of intentions at first, only to show him that I loved him. But the way that he writhed in my grip, his back arching under my hands--

And his voice, low in his throat. “Jean..”

My name was his breath, and I straightened up and kissed it out of him until he was gasping. But I was gasping too, his long fingers pressing into my back, holding me to his bare chest and then pulling at my hips, hiking the hem of my sweatshirt up my back. I pulled it over my head, and the t-shirt with it, shivering from the cold and shivering harder from the warmth of his skin against mine.

Marco was the one who pulled me by the hips toward his bed. The only thing that made up for how awkward and dumb I felt climbing up onto it was watching him follow after me, his long ass legs making the jump easily, the muscles in his arms flexing. Christ, that kid took me from romantic and loving to horny as shit in under two seconds.

He still does.

I leaned back into the pillow on his bed, my heart beating in my ears, struck suddenly vulnerable and swallowing hard; the continuous rise and fall of emotions had left me tired and feeling so bare. I still had jeans and socks on, but he could see my chest rising with my shallow breath.

And he knew exactly what to do, like he always did.

Marco straddled my hips and leaned forward over me, his scruffy hair messy from my hands and flopping onto his forehead.

“Are you ready for the most passionate kiss of your life?” he asked, his voice a growl.

I swallowed and barely nodded. 

Marco darted a quick, playful kiss to the very tip of my nose, fighting a smile.

I wrinkled my nose and laughed, surprised.

And when he kissed me seriously I forgot how vulnerable I felt.

And when his hips rolled against mine, accidentally at first, just his body’s reaction to when I moaned his name, I forgot how to breathe.

And when he kept going, I forgot how to be scared. I forgot how to be anything but the synapses that fired when he kissed me and the blood that slammed through my veins when I moved against him, lifting my hips to him, looking for more. 

Our rhythm was erratic -- Marco has more self control than I will ever possibly be able to comprehend, even then when he was barely twenty. He ground his hips so slow and hard that I was fucking desperate, twisting up into him whatever way I could, begging him to be rough but loving when he moved like that. 

I swore, the word breaking and quivering in my mouth, and that made Marco bite his lip. His hands tightened into fists on either side of my head, clutching at handfuls of the sheets with bloodless knuckles. But still he kept his trembling, slow pace, and when I tugged him down to me and kissed him hungrily, we were both gasping--

There was a deep vibration between both of us. Not in the romantic way. As in, my cellphone was still in the front pocket of my jeans, vibrating with the beat of the ringtone when it started to ring. 

It surprised the shit out of both of us; Marco pulled away from me and sat back on my hips, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. When he realized what it was -- I scrambled for the phone and tugged it out of my pocket, turning it so I could read the screen -- Marco laughed slightly.

“Who is it?” he asked.

I swallowed hard. “My mom.”

The phone was still ringing in my hand -- I had the shitty model that rang and rang and rang unless one of us hung up. And my mom refused to hang up; the ringtone repeated itself over again.

A wave of terror washed through me. Maybe residue from before, my immediate reaction just because I’d been feeling it before; maybe because if my mother ever called me, it was in the middle of the day, and suddenly calling me at almost midnight seemed violently wrong. 

Mostly because I couldn’t move so swiftly from this part of me with Marco to that part of me with her. Vulnerable in the best way to vulnerable to the worse. I took a deep shaky breath.

“You’re gonna answer it?” Marco asked, stunned. His smile was gone. 

“I have to,” I said quietly.

“You don’t have to do anything, baby,” he said softly. “Do me, ok?”

I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t funny. I never said no to my mother.

I sat up underneath him, scooting back against the pillow, and hit the green answer button on my phone. 

I don’t remember what the phone call was even fucking about. I just remember Marco moving off of me and slumping next to me in bed, curling up into my side.

I remember that at first, this was ok. I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and he rested his head on my chest, his hand tracing patterns on my stomach.

I remember that the longer the phone call went on, the more uncomfortable I felt, like she could see me, like she heard the sound of Marco’s lips when he kissed my neck. I shrugged away from him, so irrational, so paranoid, regressing and disappearing even while I was still in his grasp.

I remember my mom saying, “why are you breathing so hard? What are you doing?”

I stammered. “I-- I just got back from the gym.”

“At midnight?”

“It’s open 24/7, Mom.” 

And I remember that was when Marco finally let go of me. He slid off the edge of the bed, just out of my reach when I tried to catch his hand. And with a few long seconds of no sound but my mom talking away on the phone, he had put his shirt back on, sat down at his desk, and started doing his homework. 

Like nothing had happened.

I dismissed him again. I lied and covered him up, like he was nothing.

You don’t have to tell me I was the worst asshole on earth. I know. I know.

I hurt him, and held him, and hurt him while I held him.

 

*

 

I don’t remember what my mom was calling about on the Sunday, but by the end of the second week, she was calling every day, and there was only one topic to our conversations.

On Monday, she talked for an hour about me transferring. And by the end of the lecture, I told her that it sounded like a good idea.

On Tuesday, I explained that if I left art college, I wanted to become a police officer.

On Wednesday, she told me that she had called in a few favors, and the community college near my hometown was still taking late acceptances for the spring semester. Since I’d filled a majority of requirements with my AP tests from high school, and since I’d already been attending a semester’s worth at a regular school, I could declare a major in criminal justice right away. It was an associate’s degree, so only two years tops, and by then I would be twenty one, the age required to apply for basic training with the NYPD. It all worked out so perfectly, she said more than once. She was so proud. She told me she couldn’t wait to see me in those dress blues, serving my country.

So I told her to make an appointment with the admissions office. 

On Thursday, she called and told me that we had an appointment on Saturday morning with the school’s director of admissions. They didn’t usually do anything school-related on weekends, but they also usually didn’t have Beata Kirschtein calling daily. My mom relayed that one with the smack of satisfaction in her voice, and she was proud of me, and she was proud of her family, and I asked, do I have to come home for the weekend? I have a lot of homework.

She agreed to drive me back early Sunday morning. Then we could pack some of my stuff from my dorm room in, get as much back home as possible.

It moved so fast. It worked so clean. It felt like it made so much sense.

My mom told me she couldn’t wait to see me. She never said stuff like that.

I remember that I sat in my desk chair after that, feeling empty and full at the same time, and I thought about the first time I had sat at that desk. I thought about how happy I was. I thought about how that me -- that small, pathetic me who was so determined not to be afraid of anything that he didn’t let himself think about anything for too long -- I thought about how I hadn’t known the fucking meaning of happy.

The thought of not seeing Marco every day was excruciating. It would mean long distance and huge amounts of time between whenever we could be together, it would mean chaining myself to the webcam and to my cellphone just to be close to him. It would mean distance and forgetting and struggling-- but then again, I was already hurting him so bad, and he was right there.

It would mean not kissing him awake.

It would mean not spending all my nights doing stupid stuff with my best friend.

It would also mean having to explain to my parents why I was driving down to see someone that I had barely mentioned to them, “my buddy.” There was no way I would be able to explain that one after a while, and what about if we lasted? What the fuck would I be doing to Marco, pretending to just go visit my old roommate from art college when I was 35 and living alone for the rest of the time? What was I going to do, move out of my parents’ place once he graduated and find a way to explain platonically moving in with my boyfriend? What, would I propose to him and then tell my mom that he just thought the ring looked nice when she saw it on his hand when she visited?

The concept of coming out to them was distant and terrifying. It didn't even feel plausible anymore. It was never going to happen.

I hadn’t even told Marco about transferring yet. I couldn’t find the words.

He came home shortly after that, nudging the door open with a sigh of relief.

“Thank God tomorrow is Friday,” he huffed, dumping his backpack onto his desk. Then he came over to me in the chair and kissed my cheek. “Hi, boy.”

“I’m going home tomorrow,” I said quietly in response.

“That really sucks,” Marco said, shrugging his jacket off; there was still snow on the fabric, and in his hair. When I didn’t say anything, he looked over at me, running a hand through his hair.

And he stopped, his hand falling to his side, his hair tousled and sticking up. He didn’t care. He was staring at me, and when I still didn’t say anything, his face went pale.

“Are you gonna come back?” Marco asked.

I leaned my head in my hand and rubbed my face. “For the rest of this semester.”

“You’re transferring,” he said. He didn’t question it, he stated it.

I nodded slowly.

Marco turned away from me, putting his hands flat on his desk and leaning forward, his shoulders tensed. He stayed like that for a minute, then straightened up again, letting out a deep breath slowly.

“I knew it,” he said quietly. “I mean, I knew it. You stopped talking about it. You never said whether your parents paid the tuition, I mean, if you wanted to come back, you would have made them pay for it. You fight for the things you want.” Marco shook his head, and his voice cracked. “And you clearly don’t want me anymore.”

I got out of my chair. “What-- Marco--”

“What’s it gonna be, Jean?” his voice was tight and low with anger. “Are you gonna say what you keep trying to say, or are you just gonna try to convince me you’re not gay? But then again, you don’t need to break up with me, what the fuck do I matter. I’m your roommate.”

“Marco--” I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I had never seen him this angry, and underneath the arched eyebrows and sharp voice, I could see the hurt. I could feel it radiating from him.

I made him feel like that. I did. No one else but me. It was like getting kicked in the stomach, realizing that.

“You could tell me that you never actually wanted to be with me,” Marco suggested, his voice rising. “You could tell me you were drunk when you kissed me.”

“I was.” 

Shit. The words had slipped out before I meant them to, but they were only partially false, I was a lightweight with a can of beer, an empty stomach, and a cold when I kissed him, the situation was kind of questionable. But it hadn’t mattered, because I was kissing him, and that cleared my head--

It was too late for me to say that. It was too fucking late to fix my poor choice of words and my idiotic mouth.

Marco was shaking. And he was staring at me, his dark eyes wide.

“Sweetheart,” I said quietly. “I’m--”

“No. You don’t get to do this.” Marco shook his head. “You don’t get to call me that right now. You don’t get to make me love you and then just leave!”

“I’m not leaving!” My voice rose. “I’m not leaving.”

Marco faltered. “You just said you were, Jean.”

“I-- No, I mean-- I’m leaving the school. But I’m not leaving you.”

There was a long silence. 

The next time Marco spoke, his voice was trembling. “It’s the same thing, baby.”

“No,” I insisted roughly, moving towards him and hugging him hard, too hard, pulling him into my arms and holding onto him tight. My words were muffled in his shoulder. “It’s not the same fucking thing, I’m not leaving you, I’m not, ok?”

Marco held onto me just as tight, his breath deep and shaky and hot on my neck. “What are we going to do, then? How are we going to long distance when our entire everything only happens when we’re alone in a room together?”

He had summed up so eloquently the fear that had been eating me alive for weeks. And I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t have a promise.

Marco pulled away from me, but only to hold my face in his hands and lean his forehead on mine. “I’ll do it. I’ll do long distance. If there’s somewhere other than here that will make you happy, then that’s where you need to go. But I need to see you, Jean-- I need to pick you up from the airport and jump on you like an idiot, I need to tell all my friends that you’re coming to visit, I need to introduce you to my mom..” His voice got thick. “I just-- I don’t--”

He couldn’t say anything else, because I kissed him, and then I kissed his tears. 

He was right. He was right. But I couldn’t let him go.

I wiped his face with my sleeve. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Don’t.”

“I’m not crying,” Marco mumbled. “Just-- pretend I’m not, ok, fuck, I just, I’m angry, and it doesn’t mean anything, I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry--”

“I’m the fucking asshole who should apologize, alright?” I forced myself to say it. “I can’t let you go. I can’t. I’m not letting you go.”

I’m not getting through another day unless you’re in it, sending me stupid jokes and smiling at me. I’m never looking at another man again, because all I’ll see is freckles.

I remember thinking that. I remember being so goddamned convinced that as long as I stopped being a bitch, as long as I stopped being weak and pathetic, I could have both. I could have my mom telling me she was proud, and I could have Marco. 

Fear doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t work like that.

But in that moment, all I saw was the threat of losing him.

I was so stupid. I was so selfish.

And I made promises that I wasn’t going to keep.

We all do that when we’re young. We hurt ourselves. We hurt each other. We hurt the ones we love. And... I just...

And when Marco shook his head and sniffed, I wiped his tears away again, gentle as I could. And I whispered, “I’m gonna love you until I’m old and gross, ok? I’m gonna love you more every day. I’m never gonna let you go.”

I will never forget saying that to him. It was worse than calling him names. It was crueler than telling him I didn’t love him at all.

Only two thirds of it was true.

Marco just nodded, and when I kissed him, he was there. Hungry and desperate, not stopping for breath, never letting me go.

 

*

 

He knew. He felt it before I ever let myself.

We had promised to do long distance, to stay together, to work on it. But it still felt like a death sentence. I tried so hard to convince him that it wasn’t -- I went home for the weekend, met with the Director of Admissions at the community college with my mom, and got all my paperwork put through, but I still came back to campus. I came back to him. 

Marco watched my mother go through my side of the dorm room and decide what to take back with her. He was polite and friendly and smiled even though my mom was clearly uncomfortable -- early on, I’d told her that my roommate was gay, and this was the first time she’d met him. He watched like he was watching prison guards practice the procedure for a public execution. Some Green Mile shit.

He was silent. He didn’t say anything. He held onto me tight once she’d left, and we spent the rest of the day in his bed, trying vaguely to do homework.

Marco knew. And I knew, too. 

I had to go home to realize that I had to do it.

Because I’d sat on my bed, staring at the paint stains on my carpet from high school, and realized what I was doing was so fucking wrong. Because when I was alone like that, I would overthink everything, and every single moment that I had hurt Marco hurt me, too. Because there were too many of those moments to count, and I drowned in them, staying up until the sun rose and feeling it sitting like water in my lungs. I lost every happy moment I had with him because the pain was just too fucking much.

And he always took it. I hurt him, and he took it. And he still loved me.

I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t let him go.

He was the best part of me.

And I was destroying him.

I made an honest man hide who he was from the people he cared about. I made the most genuine person I had ever met into someone who questioned everything he did, to make sure he was meeting my needs. I fucked him up. I fucked up everything.

He deserved so much better than hours of webcam that would only end up being me, struggling with words like I had over Thanksgiving. Endless amounts of struggling to communicate, because back then, the only way I could say what I meant was when I touched him. He deserved better than who I would regress to. He deserved more than a boy sitting in the shower.

If only we could have frozen where we were two weeks ago.

If only I could be brave.

But time passes.

And fear doesn’t work like that. It would be years. 

I had known that. I had told him that, the first time I kissed him. But he had told me he could handle it, if it meant being together. And I had let him. 

I couldn’t let him go. 

But the words I’d been holding onto since the beginning of our relationship were finding their way back to my mouth.

I wasn’t going to do this to him. I couldn’t do this to him.

And that was how I knew I was really, truly in love with Marco. When you love someone -- unconditionally, forever -- you put their feelings above your own.

By the time I got back on Sunday, I had made up my mind.

It happened slowly. Painfully. Without words.

He knew. And I knew.

By Monday, the rest of our third week had been narrowed down. My dad had called me and asked when classes ended; I said they ended Wednesday, because the end-of-semester evaluations of our work would go on for the rest of the week. They counted as our finals, the meetings we had with teachers and other students about the work we’d done. He said to hell with that, you’re going to a real college now, you don’t need to bother with those finals. They weren’t even technically graded anyway.

So we had until Wednesday.

Tuesday night, we got in bed at ten o’clock. Marco had a huge critique on his illustration work the next day, and he needed the sleep. 

But we couldn’t. 

We lay there for hours, just listening to each other breathe. For once we swapped roles, trying to sleep; I was the one staying still, slouched on my back against the pillows, and Marco moved around me. His head on my chest, listening to my heart. His whole body pressed into my side, nuzzling his face into the crook of my shoulder. I was the big spoon, then he was the big spoon. We tangled ourselves and memorized every inch, and neither one of us broke the silence. Neither one of us addressed exactly why we were choosing this over sleep.

He knew. I knew.

It was one o’clock in the morning when Marco sat up. I ran my fingers down his back, curving my way down the notches of his spine. He turned and looked down at me, his hair messy, his eyes black in the dark. 

“Let’s go for a walk,” he whispered.

“It’s freezing,” I mumbled.

“It’s snowing.” He pressed the words to my forehead with a kiss.

That seemed to be a good enough argument. Ten minutes later, I was hiking my boots onto my feet and smoke was pouring from our mouths as we walked away from the dorms. I didn’t realize he was heading towards the quad near the sculpture studio until we were almost there. I was more focused on him holding my hand.

It scared me like it always did. But there was something more terrifying lurking, and that was the fact that in two days, I wouldn’t be holding it anymore.

I took what I could get. And when I was sure we were the only idiots out on the quad in the middle of the night while snow fell thick across campus, I lifted his fingers to my mouth and kissed them.

I remember that we kicked around the snow that had started to drift across the grass of the quad. I remember that we found somewhere there wasn’t already snow -- underneath a tree with branches still thick and green with leaves. I remember that we sat down under it. 

I don’t remember how we ended up lying on our backs under the tree, staring up and watching the snow fall. I just remember Marco lying with his head on my chest. I remember curling around him, and he was my only source of warmth on the cold ground, and he had always been that way for me.

He hadn’t smiled in days.

That was how I knew I was doing the right thing.

We only spoke once, the entire time we watched the snow fall in the dark.

“Some day,” Marco said softly.

“Hmm?” I moved my arm from around him and touched his hair.

“Some day,” he said, “it won’t be this hard. For me and you. Some day.”

I didn’t say anything.

I didn’t know if there would ever be a day like that.

It didn’t look like it.

 

*

 

My dad drove up Wednesday morning. He told me to not bother going to my classes, just get all my shit packed up and ready for when he got there with the car. 

I kissed Marco awake, and when he groaned and mumbled something about how warm the bed was, it was almost like nothing was wrong.

I smiled despite myself, leaning over him in bed. “That’s what you get for going outside at 1 AM, nerd.”

Marco opened his eyes, and they were warm.

It was a slow process, the realization of what I’d said. Where we’d gone last night. Why. And the look on his face broke my weak, desperate fucking heart.

But it was too late to change anything. My dad was on his way, Marco had a huge illustration critique, and by the time we got out of bed, we didn’t have time to get breakfast.

I would never eat breakfast in the dining hall with him again.

This is why no matter what time my shift at the precinct is or when my kids need to be somewhere in the mornings, I make them sit down for breakfast with me. And no matter what, if he’s busy or I’m pissed or we’re both late for work-- 

I kiss my husband.

But the me seventeen years ago had no idea.

I thought it was the last time I would ever have a meal with him.

I was so young, and so afraid, and so broken, and it was too late.

My dad got to the dorm by eleven AM. We had all of my stuff packed into the trunk and backseat of his car by eleven thirty, when classes would be getting out. My side of the room was bare.

I didn’t leave anything for him, and I didn’t take his t-shirts or his comforter or anything. I thought it was better that way.

My dad kept asking me if I was ready to go, but I kept putting him off, and my anxiety was working its way up, because what if I left before he came back, what if I never got to see him, what if I never got to say--

What if I never got to say goodbye.

My dad and I were still stood in my room making sure that we hadn’t forgotten anything when Marco walked in, his arms full of his work. He took the sight of the empty room in, then he looked at my dad, then he looked at me.

And then he was suddenly looking at everything and nothing else, trying to be polite and have a conversation with my dad, his voice shaking, just enough that only I could tell he was trying to hold it together.

“You ready?” my dad asked, abruptly cutting off whatever he was saying to Marco.

“Can you give me a minute, Dad?” I asked quietly.

I don’t know where I got the balls from. I didn’t even try to come up with a valid excuse for why. My dad knew how to see through my lies, anyway.

He took a long look at Marco. And then he nodded, and without a word, headed out the door. I heard the sound of his keys being drawn out of his pocket, and I knew he would want me to get in the car when I was ready. And hurry up.

Marco just stood there, staring at me. 

I was the one who closed the space between us, my arms around his waist, pulling him into my grip and burying my face in the crook of his neck. Marco wrapped his arms around my neck and took deep shaky breaths. 

He knew.

And I knew.

And of all the things we could have said to each other--

Don’t go.

Don’t let me go.

I love you.

I’m not going to forget you.

You changed my life.

You drive me crazy.

It’s you. It will always be you.

Please be happy.

Please find someone who loves you the way I love you.

Don’t let go.

I’m giving up on you.

Thank you for everything.

Of all the things we could have said. And neither of us said a word. 

Marco pulled away, just far enough to kiss me. Long and deep and soft, the way he’d kissed me when I was scared, the way he kissed me the first time. 

And then he let go of me.

And I hauled my duffel bag over my shoulder.

And I left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> breathe.  
> this is the worst. it will only get better from here.  
> <3


	10. Honeybee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You didn't have to say my name / ignite my circuits and start a flame / but you did. / Oh, turpentine erase me whole / 'cause I don't want to live my life alone / well, I was waiting for you all my life. / Oh, why... / Set me free."
> 
> \-- Steam Powered Giraffe, "Honeybee"

Ok. I’m going to tell the next part a little differently. Partially because it’s already been written, and I just didn’t know that I was writing it at the time.

But mostly because it lets me skip ahead a little. About a year -- to my third semester at the community college, to the part where I had friends and classes I liked and was managing to pass for happy to most people.

Because no one wants a visual of all the months before that, when I was just... a fucking mess. Like, the visual of me lying in bed watching romantic movies at three in the morning and crying because fucking 13 Going On 30 came on and the fucking actor’s fucking name is Mark--

That’s not something anyone wants to hear about, trust me. 

Just... that whole year. You’re not missing anything. It was my mom asking me what was wrong, and my throat threatening to close before I could answer, “nothing, just have a lot of homework.” It was my dad staring at me, knowing exactly what I was upset about and not saying a word. It was me going to community college and ending up with all the people I went to high school with, living at home and commuting to classes like nothing had changed. It was me, regressing right back to where I was before the boy.

The boy, who I never said another word to after I left. Who never texted or called me either. There was no being friends. There was no keeping in touch. The silence when I left had been enough proof of that. I hurt him too deep, and I loved him too much to pretend anything else.

The boy, who I still reached out for when I woke up shaking and soaked to the skin with sweat. I had to teach myself that the light was a different colour, that the bed was too big, and he wasn’t there.

That took years.

Yeah, we’re gonna skip this part.

A year after I left, I was ok. I was happy, if happy means busy, and busy means swamped with work. In my second year of community college -- when I was the Jean Kirschtein that everyone kinda knew in high school again, and my showers were so long I doubled my parents’ water bill --

A year after I left, I was enrolled in a psychology course. It was part of the requirements of my criminal justice degree, but that was fine, I liked this kind of stuff. And one of the homework assignments throughout the semester was to write letters: it was an exercise of examining our own mental capacity, or some shit like that. Basically, she just wanted us to be write honestly, and every week. She told us to pick someone to address the letters to, even if we never sent any of them, and express it like that. It was the act of talking to someone and expanding like that, even if they never see it and even if you never have the chance to actually say it. 

I remember how violently, silently thrilled I was when she told us we could share the letters with the class, but if we wanted, we could keep it private. As long as we showed her that we were writing every week, she didn’t have to read it if we didn’t want her to. 

I never let her read them once. They were all to Marco.

It felt stupid at first. And then it was a relief. Maybe I would never have to say anything out loud again, if I could write it down like I was talking to the only person I wanted to tell.

So I wrote. And when the class ended in early May, and I’d filled a whole notebook, I bought another one. And I kept writing. Pretty much for the next six years.

The letters are all stupid and sometimes incoherent. They’re painful, and they’re fucking pathetic, because that’s what I was. I hated myself.

I hated what I’d done to him. I hated what I’d done to myself. I hated myself for missing him, because I deserved every ounce of pain I felt. It was all my fault.

I hated not having one moment of relief from the fear. I hated going back to who I was. I hated who I was without him.

Marco found them a few weeks ago; after all these years, I still held onto them. They’re a good reminder. They’re good for when I feel like shit, because it used to be so much worse.

I didn’t want him to read it at first, but he deserved to know. So I gave them to him, and he sat at our kitchen table the entire afternoon, just reading. 

Then he came out to the backyard and found me messing around with Theo on the swing set, and he held onto me for a long time.

I think this was one of the biggest reasons I started writing. He doesn’t know I’m working on this, but I’m going to let him read it when I’m done. 

Marco, I love you.

And I’m including all the letters that made you cry. Or laugh, because you laughed, and wow that is embarrassing. 

This isn’t the worst part. It’s just the part without you.

 

\-- 

 

Five Years Before  
January 23 2009

Sweetheart,

I actually fucking hate being back at this school.

I like my classes, I like my teachers, and I really like what I’m doing, but holy hell. The kids here. I didn’t know it was a thing that you could go to college and get progressively fucking dumber. Nobody gives a crap the way that I do -- everyone here is pretty much exclusively from my high school or the one in the next town over, and every single one of them had the same speech from their guidance counselors telling them to do something with their lives. So they go to community college, and fuck off all day. It drives me insane. I CARE about this. I cared about this enough to leave you.

I hang out with a few people in between my classes. This one kid Connie in my trig class is pretty cool, he drives up here from Jersey, he’s majoring in architecture. We just bullshit a lot, he’s really funny, but when I first told him that I wanted to be a police officer, he looks at me and says really seriously, “I couldn’t do it, man. I couldn’t deal with society crumbling and all that shit, I’d get too jaded. I want to build stuff for people, not watch it fall down.”

I thought about that for a long time. I think he’s wrong -- I think being a part of the whole justice system is really about being there when shit starts falling apart, you know? I think we’re the ones who move in when everyone else feels too jaded.

Fair enough, though. Connie’s too short anyway, haha.

But I like it. I like being here, despite the stupid people. This feels like me. I mean, I miss painting every day, I barely get the chance to sketch anymore, but I don’t miss art school like I thought I would. I miss the friends. I miss you.

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.

Olivier broke up with his girlfriend of three years a few weeks ago, and he’s literally fine, and I’m just a fucking baby, and I’m creepy and stupid, because you definitely have already moved on, and I just love you and wish I knew how to stop.

J

 

\--

 

March 12 2009

Sweetheart,

I’m stupid and this girl from my sociology class asked me to go out with her tonight and I fucking said yes because I don’t know, my brother would get off my case and she’s nice I guess her name is Kaitlyn I don’t fucking know 

So I say fucking yes and I show up to her fucking house in a stupid nice shirt I guess I don’t know, the last person I went out on an actual date with was in high school and that just made me think about you and you can see how this is fucking haywire already, but Kaitlyn was really sweet, and why not

just why the fuck not

We drove to the bigger part of my hometown and she suggested we go to this little Italian place and I’m like yeah sure, and it looked like Mina’s

I left early and I didn’t kiss her and she probably thought it was because I didn’t like her or she wasn’t worth my time which is fucking awful but I just couldn’t kiss someone who tastes like pizza and then open my eyes and see that it’s not you

J

 

\--

 

March 15 2009

Sweetheart,

I guess she just thought me not kissing her was me being a gentleman.

I don’t get how I can be the worst fucking asshole in the world and people who are better than me and kinder than me and more than I’ll ever deserve mistake it for me being nice or holding back or I don’t fucking know.

We went out on another date last night and it was fine. I think this is the part where I ask her to be my girlfriend, but I’ll get around to it.

Maybe this is what real love is supposed to feel like, and my few months with you were just something that I’ll never experience again. A Haley’s Comet. You see it once in your lifetime, for a few minutes, and then it’s gone.

Never enough time to understand what you had. Just a few pictures.

My mom upgraded me to an iPhone a few months ago, so I don’t even have any pictures of you from the old one.

Never enough time.

J

 

\--

 

April 7 2009

Marco,

I turned twenty today. Kaitlyn wants to make it all romantic bullshit and go out somewhere for it, but I just

I should stop calling you sweetheart on these letters.

J

\--

 

Four Years Before  
October 8 2009

My Marco,

Every song is you. Every shitty pop song on the radio and every album on my iPod. Every stupid lyric about getting lost and falling hard and everything that was ever tragic and cliche and heartfelt and acoustic is still you. I can’t even listen to Death Cab. Still. I don’t listen to anything with words anymore. They are everything I was supposed to say to you.

It’s been two years, and I shouldn’t feel like this, and my girlfriend thinks that all the classical music CDs in my car make me deep and mysterious as shit. I think about dumping her sometimes just because of that. She just doesn’t fucking get it.

But it’s not her fault. It’s mine. I’m not going to tell her, because what would be the point? She’d laugh. And then she’d dump me, and tell the whole fucking school about queer Kirschtein, and I just

It’s been two years, and I still sit here trying to figure out why, for fuck’s sake, I still, right now, feel the way I felt about you when I met you -- why, even though you’ve moved on and you’re a senior by now and you’re happy and you’re probably with someone who can love you the way you’re supposed to be loved -- I can’t let go of you. 

Why I’m a piece of shit and even when I’m sitting in my car on the highway listening to Mozart, I think about you, and the way your hands moved. 

I wish I hadn’t memorized everything.

I wish that I could feel about Kaitlyn the same way I feel about you, because she told me she loves me, and when I said it, I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and this is so much worse.

I wish I could remember what your laugh sounded like, and I wish that I didn’t wish that, and I wish I could have been strong for you

J

 

\-- 

 

December 20 2009

Marco,

I graduated today.

The photographer they hired for the ceremony insisted on taking a picture of me and Kaitlyn in our caps and gowns together. He called us college sweethearts.

He kept telling me to smile.

I graduated today and I just wanted to tell you.

J

 

\-- 

 

December 22 2009

Marco,

I broke up with Kaitlyn. 

She called me a faggot for not wanting her, when there were guys lining down the block to fuck her, and what the hell was wrong with me?

I just shrugged. I said I was sorry once. I owed her that.

I didn’t want to listen to the bullshit anymore. I didn’t want to pretend. I’d rather be alone than wake up next to someone who doesn’t get it.

I just didn’t say mostly anything other than the apology and the ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’

And when she called me a fag, I just thought to myself, well. She knows.

That will definitely make her leave faster, at least.

I told my mom, and she tried to be supportive. She was really nice, and she helped me get all of Kait’s stuff out of my room. Out of the house, out of my car. She figured while we were cleaning up that she would go through some of the clothes I don’t wear anymore and donate them to the Good Will fundraiser her foundation is sponsoring. Ok, I said, that’s fine, I didn’t give a fuck about anything.

And then she found the beanie.

I keep it in the dresser drawer underneath my shirts. I don’t want to look at it, but I don’t want to get rid of it, and it still smells like you. That makes me fucking freaky and weird and pathetic, but.

“I haven’t seen you wear this thing in years,” my mom said. Then she threw it in the trash bag with all the other ratty old clothes I didn’t want or she didn’t like.

I didn’t say anything.

What was I going to say?

Don’t, Mom. The last time someone wore that hat, he was sitting in my lap in his boxers, using it for motivational inspiration while we were trying to study together, when really it turned into me throwing M&M’s into the air and him trying to catch them in his mouth. 

Don’t throw it away. Don’t take it away from me. It’s all I fucking have left.

I don’t deserve it. 

But it’s all I have.

But I don’t deserve even that.

I don’t deserve to walk around this house and keep going in life in a direction that I’d never expected, every so often catching whiffs on my shirt of a boy who used to love me.

Take it.

Just take the hat away from me.

It’s been years, and it shouldn’t matter anymore.

I didn’t say anything. And when she’d taken a few more shitty t-shirts, she knotted the trash bag closed and threw the whole thing into the back of her car.

She got home from work tonight, and the bag was gone.

It shouldn’t matter anymore.

It shouldn’t matter anymore.

It shouldn’t matter anymore.

J

 

\-- 

 

1 January 2010

Marco,

Connie and I got drunk last night. Like really drunk. There was nothing else to do, Kait pretty much fucking blacklisted me from most of the friends we hung out with together. That’s fine. Fuck them. Con is hilarious. And his house is completely stocked with alcohol.

We started talking about exes. You know, the ones you regret letting go. The ones you just want to fuck one last time, because god damn. The ones you actually cared about, and it broke your fucking heart to watch them go.

Connie never talks about this stuff, but he was so wasted I’m pretty sure he started sweating vodka.

So when I said that there was one -- an ex that I regretted -- his words came out all slurred when he said, “sorry, bro. Was she good in bed?”

And I said, “he was fucking mind-blowing.”

Connie was so drunk. Black out drunk. Never remember the night drunk. Start singing Auld Lang Syne out the window when it’s 11:30 on New Years’ Eve drunk.

And he just laughed in response, and said, “my new years’ resolution is to meet someone who blows my....................... mind.”

And we laughed. Because I was drunk, and it was New Years’ Eve, and all I wanted to do was kiss you, and you were probably in another timezone, waiting for midnight to be kissed by someone else.

I woke up this morning with an awful headache, a mouth that tasted like I licked the bottom of a garbage can, and I just thought to myself, my new years’ resolution is to be stronger.

I poked Connie awake just now to make sure he was alright, and I’m pretty sure he started speaking in tongues telling me to turn the light off.

Con was drunk. But I had said it. I said ‘he’ instead of ‘she.’ I told him the truth -- in the smallest words I could find, but that’s what it was.

It doesn’t really matter, because we were drunk and it was late and I’m not really sure if you keep being gay when you’ll never fall in love with another man but one. I don’t know how these things work, I don’t know.

It doesn’t matter because it’s too late.

But it matters because someone heard that I love you and didn’t look at me any differently.

Loved you. I loved you.

I don’t know. I need a fucking aspirin and a shower

J

 

\--

 

3 January 2010

Marco,

Connie never said anything. Every time we talk about NYE, he just groans a little about how drunk he got. And then he laughs.

I don’t know if he remembers. If he does, he hasn’t said anything.

It doesn’t scare me. If anyone is going to accept me, it’s Con.

It’s weird -- you have someone in your life that fills every part of what you need. Boyfriend, best friend, bro, partner in crime, study buddy. And when that person is gone, you just try to find singular people to fill the roles, and hope it makes you whole again.

Connie is a good bro.

J

 

\--

 

January 15 2010

MARCO I GOT ACCEPTED INTO THE TRAINING ACADEMY FOR THE NYPD

I’M ACTUALLY GONNA GET TO DO IT

HOLY SHIT

FUCK I’M SO PUMPED I HAVEN’T EVEN TOLD MY PARENTS YET I JUST GOT THE LETTER

J

 

\--

 

February 1 2010

Marc,

I think my friend Reiner summed up the last month or so in Basic Training the best way possible.

It’s a real pain in the ass.

Like, I love it, and it’s exactly what I want to be doing with my life, and I get so fucking pumped to go, and I already have more muscles than I have in my whole entire life, what the fuck’s up with that, but it’s a real pain in the ass.

Of course, the bigger problem here is that as soon as Reiner said it, all I could think to myself was, you don’t know what the pain in the ass is until you bottom for Marco Bodt

But that joke is shitty, and the idea of saying it to my only friend in basic training is shitty, and the fact that I let myself remember you in the middle of my day in the middle of a class while sitting next to Reiner is shitty, and I just. I’m shitty. I’m shitty for holding onto you like this -- just when I think I’m ok, I’m over it, I’m moving forward, you pop up in the back of my mind. You’re who I think of when I make an awful joke or embarrass myself. I wish I knew how to make it stop.

And sometimes I wish that Reiner was gay, you know what I mean? Or someone like him. Someone that didn’t make me feel like the ketchup stain on the white Berber carpet of humanity.

J

 

\--

 

April 7 2010

Marco,

It’s my birthday, and it’s also the day that I’m moving into my new apartment in the city with Connie. I’m much closer to the training academy now, and the precinct that they’re probably looking at assigning me to, and Connie needed to move into the city for his internship with a construction company. I feel pathetic because my parents helped me pay for the down payment, but at the same time, whatever it took to get out of that house. The window in my room faces the brick wall of the building ten feet away and nothing else, but even that is better. I’m so pumped. 

I haven’t felt this free since you.

Looking forward to getting shitfaced at the bar down the street, 

J

 

\--

 

June 16 2010

Marco,

I need to stop. I need to let this go.

I look different. I sound different. I used to be so skinny before basic training, and now fucking look at me. I don’t make art anymore. There isn’t any paint under my fingernails and there hasn’t been for a year.

No part of the man I am today is the boy that you loved. I don’t recognize myself, and I don’t want to think about the boy that you touched, because it’s my fault he’s gone, too.

I need to stop writing these goddamned letters.

I need to let go. I need to grow up. I need to just accept it.

I’m so angry. I’m so angry. I used to be scared, and now I’m just angry.

I don’t have panic attacks anymore. I take this as a bad sign. It’s like my brain has just straight-up accepted that I’m not going to be who I was with you, who I was when I was happy. And who I present to everyone else is who I am now, and I just thank god that I’ve got my own boxing bag in the auditorium, because I need to be punching someone at all hours of the day. I’m one of the top in my basic training class because I run and train and spar until I have nothing left.

This isn’t how it should be. 

I shouldn’t still feel like this because if I saw you right now, I would still kiss you, and I would still feel the same way as when I left.

It’s weird. It’s not normal. It’s not ok. People move on from their exes, and they grow the fuck up, and I don’t know why I can’t let go.

I don’t know what to do anymore except go day by day, accept that this is who I am, and just not say a word. Just hope it goes away.

Happy Birthday.

J

 

\--

 

August 25 2010

Marco,

There’s way too much information to relay about the last couple of days. First of all, I am an actual police officer working for the state of New York. Which is fucking awesome. Second of all, it’s also terrifying and hardcore as hell. Third of all, thank god for basic training because I actually look buff as shit in this uniform. Hell yeah. 

And........ now I’m a rookie.

There’s so much we have to do, and I’m really glad Reiner is in the same precinct assignment as me because otherwise I would be going crazy trying to keep up with everything and not fall down exhausted by the end of my shifts every night. But it’s so awesome. This is the happiest I’ve been in years.

Let me tell you about the people. The cool ones, the ones that I remember, because there’s so many officers and detectives and I’ve only been here a few days, it’s gonna take me freaking years to figure out who everyone is.

Bert Hoover is the guy that I got assigned rounds with for the first time. He’s only a few years older than me, but he’s been here for a while. He’s quiet -- he’s shy, which is a damned paradox within itself, a shy cop -- but I like him a lot. His quietness is respectful, like he knows he doesn’t have to fill the silence, and even though he’s a goddamned giant and he looks like he’s watching everyone all the time, he’s gentle. He reminds me of you because of that. I like him a lot.

Not like that. Not like you. But still. He doesn’t piss me off.

He wears a beanie all the time when we’re off duty. I don’t know, maybe it’s cold up there. It’s grey, though. And it doesn’t matter.

I’m tired as fuck, so the only other person I can think of that’s cool right now is this girl who I met right at the end of today. I think you’d really like her. Her name is Sasha.

Genuine is the only word I can think of to describe her. There’s not a false bone in her body. When she teases me, I know it’s not because she’s being an asshole or trying not to be insecure like pretty much everyone else in this world. She just likes to talk. She just goes right up to whoever she wants to talk to, and that’s it, it’s great. It scares the shit out of me -- she can look at you and you feel like she knows exactly who you are, every inch -- but you also feel like she likes it. She likes you. It’s not a bad thing. If she knew who I really was, she wouldn’t judge.

And she smiles a lot, like you.

My first conversation with her happened out of nowhere. Sasha’s been in this division for a year already, and there’s a running joke with the rest of the precinct; because she’s one of the only officers active in the field who’s a woman. And she’s super feminine, and she laughs a lot, and basically she’s a prime target for all the misogynistic fucks out there who call her pet names and try to flirt with her when she pulls them over for speeding. 

So everyone -- including the chief -- calls her Sweetheart.

She says she encourages it because then the perps will misjudge her and think she’s nothing but a weak girl, and when she kicks their asses and hauls them into the back of her squad car, the looks on their faces make her day.

I hear it whenever she walks in. Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart.

She’s proud of being feminine and fucking hardcore at the same time, and that’s actually really fucking great to me. But when she explained the whole thing to me, I told her I couldn’t call her that.

Sasha didn’t ask why. I think she could tell from the look on my face that there was a definitive reason, and it wasn’t just because I might be a gross anti-feminist tool. It’s not that. It’s not that. It’s not that.

“Well,” she said after a minute, “you have to call me something cheesy. I need your guard down so you won’t see it coming when I kick your ass.”

I told her I’d call her Baby, and she agreed.

J 

 

\-- 

 

Three Years Before  
October 1 2010

Marco,

I didn’t think I would meet someone who made me feel comfortable with myself again. And I mean, it’s not the same kind of thing -- Sasha doesn’t know me, myself, really. She doesn’t know about you, or any of that kind of stuff. But then again, I put all that shit away, I don’t think about it, it’s not a part of me anymore. The only connection I still have to it are these letters, because I just can’t stop... I don’t know.

My point is, it wasn’t love at first sight like it was with you. It’s totally different, we’re just friends. But if I’m ever going to find someone who’s as easy and effortless to be friends with as it was with you, then it’s probably her.

But Sasha became my friend so fast. So easy. She laughs at me, and it’s actually fucking refreshing. I can just relax with her. It’s actually really weird that she’s a girl, because normally my friendships with girls are so stilted. Probably because I’m an idiot who tries too hard, but you know what I’m saying. My favourite thing is hanging out with her in the gym, because I’ll say in the grossest douchiest voice I can muster, “Hey Baby.” And she’ll call me Macho Man, and then she’ll kick my ass. I’m not even mad, it’s funny.

I’m glad she’s a girl. I can stay friends with her, I can be honest with her and talk about serious shit with her and hang out with her, and not have to be afraid that everyone else is wondering if I’m gay for her or something. Because surprise, asshole, she’s got tits. It makes it so much easier.

I introduced her to Connie the other day, when we went to the bar down the street from our apartment together after shift, and Con came by when he got out. We ended up sitting there in one of the booths until closing time. They really hit it off. Sasha laughed at every single one of Connie’s ridiculous puns. 

I’m just relieved as hell that my friends can be friends with each other, because they’re both great, you know what I mean?

We stood with Sasha until we managed to get her a cab home outside of the bar. It was muggy as shit, it’s always like this in New York by the end of the summer, and it made me think about you, and how you said you always wanted to live here. I wondered if where you grew up ever felt like you could swim in the air. I never got the chance to ask.

And then I stopped thinking about you, because this is a parallel universe and a time and a place that I will never see with you -- people that I love that I will never introduce to you -- and you’re nothing but a memory.

So Sasha got in the cab, and I said, “bye, Baby,” because that’s what I always call her. And then when the car pulled away, Connie looked up at me with surprise.

“You call her baby?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I shrug. “Why?”

Connie shook his head, and started acting weird as we walked home. “No reason,” he said after a while. “She’s really pretty, bro.”

I hadn’t thought about it.

“I guess,” I said.

I should notice these things. I should see how pretty girls are, instead of going through intensely specific motions every night to lock my bedroom door and make sure Connie doesn’t think I’m trying to pull anything gay on him.

I guess Sasha is really pretty.

J

 

\--

 

April 22 2011

Marco,

I’m glad you’re gone. I’m glad I left. I’m glad you’ll never read these.

Because if I sent you this letter, I’d probably be able to hear you laughing your ass off from another timezone.

I’m gonna write this down once, and then I’m never going to mention it again.

Ok.

I have this thing. This thing about names. 

When I see the name of someone from my old life -- the life with you, the life before now, the art school, shit like that -- I react to it. I mean, the other day, Baby took me to this bar that just opened up down the street from the precinct, and we were sitting at the bar, and some random dude stands next to me and asks for a Jaeger.

And all I think about is Eren. It’s a trigger, except not bad, it’s so many years ago, it just makes me think about it. About chilling with him. About punching him in the face. About where he is now, because I haven’t spoken to him since I left, either.

And Sasha looks at me and asks what’s wrong, because she knows by now when I zone out and start thinking about something, we spend way too much time hanging out. I just shrugged and said nothing, because I didn’t know how to explain it.

I went home and hunted him down on Facebook when I got home, and sent him a friend request. All because I heard his name. 

I didn’t look you up. I didn’t have the heart to even type your name in the search bar. I don’t want to know, because I’m afraid that I’ll send you a request, too.

But anyway.

The thing with names.

So I was doing rounds in the neighborhood. It was just me in the squad car, Bert had gotten suddenly called in by the Chief, but that was fine. I’m driving around, I’m doing my job, that’s fine.

And I drive by a sign on the side of a bus stop on a random street. It’s advertising for an art show that’s opening in a gallery in Chelsea at the end of the week, a sculptural show with all these huge reviews. And the name of the artist is in these big block letters.

Thomas Wagner.

And it works just like the way it did with Eren. I am suddenly violently reminded about that complete fucking asshat. It wasn’t a bad thing, I didn’t freak out, I had just completely forgotten about him and his stupid sideburns until that moment.

I drove by again, going around the block, scaring the shit out of some kids on the sidewalk near the sign when I stop the car in front of it.

I wrote down the address.

And for some fucking reason, at the end of the week, I found myself on the train to Chelsea, heading for the show in a goddamned tie.

I walked into the gallery and recognized absolutely no one. I never come to this part of New York, I never have time, so. It could have been Wyoming, for all I knew about it. I blended in with the crowds moving around the huge plaster installations in the gallery, and no one knew my name.

There was a 99.999% chance that this wasn’t the idiot that you went out with in college. I mean, the sheer coincidence of it. I was just there because even if it wasn’t the right Thomas Wagner, it was still a Thomas Wagner, a reminder that art college and you were more than just a dream that I made up.

Someone handed me a glass of wine when I walked in. I’d finished three glasses by the time I’d walked around the whole gallery and seen all the sculptures. I grabbed a fourth glass off a server and let the buzz hit my head, trying not to think about my own name silk screened onto posters for a solo show in Chelsea. 

And then I saw him across the room.

I recognized him. I never forget a dumbass.

Still, though. I was staring at him, feeling the shock course through me, because the last time I’d seen this kid, he was rubbing his dumb face all over yours. He looked different, but he looked the same, and I knew it was the right Thomas. 

What was the chance, you know? What if I hadn’t seen that sign? What if I’d just gotten pissed off and repressed it like I always do?

I was about to leave right then when Thomas made eye contact with me. He excused himself from his conversation and started walking towards me, smiling as he passed through the crowds of people who recognized me, and all I could do was drown the rest of my wine and think fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I knew it was him because he smiled at me, barely hiding his distaste, and said, “Hi Gene.”

God fucking damn it you idiot.

“Jean,” I corrected him, but I held my hand out. “How are you doing, man? It’s been years.”

Thomas barely got an apology out before he launched right into thanking me for coming over to his show. We got into a conversation about where we were now, you know -- he had a studio in this part of the city, he had a couple of solo shows lined up, blah blah blah. I told him about the whole cop thing, and he laughs.

I wanted to punch him in the face. But I was half drunk, and I probably would have missed, and he was the first real connection I’d had to you in years. 

Maybe he was drunk, too. Maybe he just liked watching me squirm. Either way, an hour passed, and Thomas and I were still talking. It was easy in that crowd of people for our conversation to go unnoticed.

That’s when he said it. 

So casual.

“Do you still talk to Marco?” Thomas asked.

“No,” I said. “No. I haven’t talked to him in years.”

“Oh,” he said. “I’m shocked, I gotta say. He was in love with you.”

A long silence must have passed. I was buzzed as shit. A few seconds of feeling the weight of his words could have lasted for an hour.

“Nah,” I managed finally.

Thomas chuckled to himself. “Why do you think he left me, Jean? I saw the sketchbook. I saw the way he looked at you. I saw the way you looked at him, man, come on.”

The room spun for a second.

He knew.

Someone in this world besides you, me, and my father knew.

And it was this fucking idiot.

But he knew, and he didn’t look at me like I was any less than who I was.

“I’m not dumb,” Thomas said. “I saw it. That’s why I couldn’t believe it when you left.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about--” I started.

“You don’t have to be ashamed, man,” he said quietly. Dropping his voice, because even if he is actually an idiot, he respected me enough to do that. “I’m just saying. I saw what happened to Marco after you dropped out. It’s ok.”

“What happened to Marco?” I blurted out before I could stop. Too loud.

Thomas glanced at the people around us, who had started noticing us talking. When he suggested that we have this conversation somewhere private and led me to the storage room in the back of the gallery, I followed him without question.

I was afraid.

He ended up scaring me for nothing. When I closed the door of the cramped storage room and hit the switch for the dim lightbulb overhead, Thomas clarified.

“He was fine,” he said. “He was fine, but he just wasn’t himself. Nobody who didn’t know him would have noticed, but you could tell it hurt him more than if just his roommate left. And he never talked about you again, or said he knew what you were doing when someone asked, anyway.”

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt.

I was drunk and I was afraid and I hadn’t said your name out loud in four years. I hated Thomas for making me say and it and I hated him for having more time with you than I will ever have. Even if it was just across the room from you.

And he knew. He knew about me. He knew I was gay. He knew that I love you.

And I was in a place where no one recognized me, and where I would probably never go to again. 

And when Thomas started talking again, about you, about us, I had to figure out a way to shut him the fuck up.

So I kissed him?

And he kissed me back, because why the fuck not, and he tasted like nothing but merlot, and why the fuck not, and his face was scruffy with five o’clock shadow and his hands are huge and he’s so fucking tall and I haven’t been this turned on in years

And it’s Thomas goddamned Wagner

And I just

It’s like one minute, you think you have your life together, you’ve got a steady job and good friends and an apartment without roaches. And then suddenly I’m holding the storage room’s door closed with one hand and holding onto Thomas goddamned Wagner with the other, bending him over a cluttered drafting table and fucking him as hard as I can.

And he’s moaning and telling me I’m sexy and I’m just biting my lip so hard that it starts to bleed so I don’t say your name when I come.

It was quick. It was rough. It was stupid. It would have been unprotected if Thomas didn’t have a condom on him, and that would have just been the dumbest thing I’ve done in a while. But I still would have done it.

You can only stop a part of yourself for so long before it consumes you, and you become nothing but that. I was so desperate for a man that sex with this idiot seemed like a good idea.

I think it was also the fact that he knew who I was, both parts of me, who I am now and who I was with you, and still looked at me after we finished like he wanted more. Like he wanted me.

He gave me his number -- one of his business cards -- I threw it out as soon as I’d gotten the hell out of that gallery and walked past a trash can. I pulled out my phone and called Sasha instead.

I was still drunk. And for a minute, I was seriously, seriously considering telling her what had just happened. She wouldn’t judge me, she would probably laugh and congratulate me on getting laid. That was our friendship. I could trust it.

But I couldn’t trust myself.

The phone started to ring, waiting for her to answer, and every time it did, I shrank farther, deeper into myself. My shame. My fear. I needed a shower.

“Hey Macho Man,” Sasha said when she picked up the phone.

I said, “hey Baby,” but an eighteen wheeler drove past and drowned out my words.

“Where are you?” I heard her asking as the truck turned the corner and the sound faded.

“Nowhere,” I said.

“You’re being weird,” Sasha said with a yawn. “What’s up?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked.

“Sleeping. It’s my day off.”

“Go out with me.”

“You wanna go to the bar? You should ask Connie to come.”

“No, I mean you and me. Like... Like a date.”

“Jean, honey, are you drunk?”

“Yeah. Kinda, but I mean it, Sash. Go out with me.”

“I... Wow. Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Yeah.”

And then suddenly, I’m going on a date with Sasha.

Take that for what’s it worth.

J

 

\-- 

 

Two Years Before  
October 4 2011

Marco,

My relationship with Sasha is exactly the same thing as our friendship, except we have sex, and I’ve met her parents, and she wants to make out all the time.

This is a good thing. This is supposed to be a good thing.

Only it stops feeling like a good thing when I start thinking about it.

I don’t know.

I just feel like you’re supposed to feel this gut reaction to the person that you love. And I know my track record isn’t solid as evidence for that, I was with Kaitlyn in college for how long and I never felt that strongly for her, but still.

I love Sasha. I adore her. She’s one of the greatest people on this side of the earth, I’d do anything for her. She’s my best friend.

But it feels like she’s my best friend, and that’s it.

And I know that it’s early. The sex is fine, she doesn’t piss me off, we get along, it’s fine. And I know that I’ll probably start feeling more romantic and all that bullshit as we go along, because she’s my best friend, and in everyone else’s standards, our relationship is only getting better. 

But I just

I’ve been in a relationship with my best friend before. And it wasn’t like this.

I loved you the way that you love a friend. And I loved you the way you love someone you want to spend the rest of your life staring at. And I loved you the way you do when just looking at them across the room makes you want to just rip their clothes off with your teeth right there. I loved you in every way I could, at the same time, all the time.

I loved you like that from the beginning.

But I was young and stupid, and it was you, and this is different. This is a real relationship, with dating and exclusiveness and facebook relationship status changes and all that other bullshit. It’s different.

It’ll be fine.

It’ll get there with Sasha, I guess.

J

 

\-- 

 

November 17 2011

Marco,

I told Sasha I loved her.

And I do.

But I just keep thinking about the advice that Emile gave me a month or two ago, over the phone.

He said only tell a girl you love her if she’s the only person you could see yourself living out the rest of your life with. Being happy with. Because once you tell them you love them, it’s all over.

And I just keep thinking about that.

About who I want to spend the rest of my life with.

I don’t know why I feel guilty. It’s stupid. I’m stupid.

J

 

\-- 

 

April 1 2012

Marco,

Today I got called to the scene of a homicide.

I see it a lot. It’s New York. What are you gonna do.

And then, when me and Reiner stepped into the apartment where the call had come from, guns in our hands and still sweeping the perimeters, I saw him.

I recognized the guy. He’d come in three or four times reporting discrimination, harassment, trying to petition for a restraining order. He worked as a bartender at a gay club a few blocks away, and ever since they’d started operating as a makeshift soup kitchen for homeless and gay youth and pretty much anyone who needed help, he’d started getting hate mail. Death threats. When he made the news with his amazing work, they broke into the club.

I recognized the guy. I was the one who had written up the second report he came in for.

His corpse was lying on the floor of his living room, face down, half his head smashed in. The baseball bat was still next to him, the fucks who did it just left it.

Blood on everything. Everything.

All I saw was you.

Please be ok. You were so proud of yourself. You were so proud of who you were, open and accepting and not afraid. 

Please be afraid, if that’s what it takes. If that’s what makes the difference. If that’s what keeps you from being this guy, and the last thing he saw were people who hated him. 

I’m afraid.

Please be safe.

J

 

\--

 

May 28 2012

Marco,

Sasha and I had another goddamned fight today. I don’t understand how we could be such good friends, but as soon as you throw fucking romantic feelings into it, everything goes to hell. It was our one year anniversary like a month ago, and I love her to death, she’s my best friend, and if I broke up with her, I’d lose that. I’d lose my friend. 

Sometimes that’s the only reason I stay.

I told her I’m bad at being romantic. I’m bad at expressing my feelings. But I love her, and I’ll keep trying.

Promises.

J

 

\--

 

September 16 2012

Marco,

I had a dream about you.

It will be five years this December since I left.

I dreamed you were lying on the floor of my apartment. This one, the new one that Sasha and I just moved into together -- Connie had to move up to Vermont for a job opportunity, and she said that we should try living together.

My parents were thrilled. They bought us this apartment, not too far away from the precinct. Bought it right out, no mortgage or anything.

My dad loves Sasha. My mom is distant at best, but she’s kinda like that with everyone we date. She’s not sure about who we’re with until she’s sure she won’t embarrass us, you know what I mean? And Sasha doesn’t give a crap.

So we move in here. And we buy all this nice ass furniture, because me and Con were perfectly content with bean bags and a coffee table he won in a poker game. Even this giant ass kitchen table, like we’re going to be this fucking fabulous Martha Stewart couple, hosting dinner parties and laughing about souffle or whatever.

And then Sasha kicks my parents out so that we can have sex all over it. Fine with me. Why not. Good way to pass the afternoon.

And then I have a dream about you.

You were lying on the floor in your boxers, staring up at the ceiling. Your arms were folded behind your head, and you looked so calm. You looked so happy.

I remember because I pulled off the dark pants of my uniform, and my shoes and socks, until I was in my boxers, too. And I got down on the floor next to you, and we stared at the ceiling together. You unfolded your arm, resting it at your side next to mine, and you touched my fingers with yours. I held your hand.

Words in my dreams never make sense. They’re probably just something I heard in passing. On the subway, or on TV, or some shit. I don’t know.

But when you finally spoke, you said, really softly, “our kids are happy.”

I don’t know what the fuck that means, because I’m never having kids. I’d be too afraid that they would end up exactly like me... Afraid. I don’t want to fuck them up. I’d be a terrible father. I’m just not doing it. 

And I’m never having kids with you.

But that’s what you said. Our kids are happy.

The rest of the dream was us just lying there. I was calm. Not empty or ambivalent like usual. Just calm. Peaceful.

And then I woke up, and I was sweating and shaking so bad I woke up Sasha, too. She never sees me waking up the way I do, she sleeps like a rock, so it was embarrassing as shit.

I don’t know.

Happy Birthday.

J

 

\--

 

One Year Before  
October 4 2012

Marco,

I asked Sasha to marry me. My mother had put together this whole reunion thing with my family, and she invited Sasha’s to the house, too, which was this huge act of solidarity from her. And then the week before, she’d handed me the ring that my great grandmother had given her before she left Germany for America when she was little. It had been in our family for a long ass time, and it was really beautiful, and my mom just said she felt as though I would know what to do with it.

Which roughly translates to, ask her to marry you, because this is how it should be.

And you know me. A sucker for everything being how it should be.

We’ve been fighting a lot. I’m a terrible boyfriend. I’m angry half the time, and most of the time it’s at her, and not just myself.

This is how real love is supposed to feel, and in the back of my mind I always think about you, and I feel so guilty. I owe Sasha so much more. I owe her intense, passionate love, I owe her sex that blows her mind, I owe her everything. She’s my best friend.

We’ve just been really stressed out lately. I don’t even talk to Connie anymore, we lost contact with all the shit that’s been going on. It’s just been me and Sasha, struggling so hard one minute as Boyfriend and Girlfriend, and then going into Best Friends mode again and being ok. 

I proposed to her because I want to make it up to her. Because I want to make her happy. She deserves to be happy.

I just don’t know if I’m the right one to do that for her.

She said yes.

My mom and dad were thrilled.

J

 

\-- 

 

Seven Months Before  
March 2 2013

Marco,

sometimes I drive around farther than I’m supposed to when I’m doing rounds. I go into random neighborhoods, I find weird places and residential parts that are actually really beautiful. It makes me want to paint again, which is weird. I shoved all my art supplies stuff in the back of the closet when we moved into this apartment a few months ago, and never touched them again. I should just throw them out.

But a few days ago, I was driving around in a quieter part of the city I’d never been in before.

And there was a flower shop.

I know it’s not you. I know. There’s no way in hell. But ‘Bodt’s Flowers’ is painting on the front window, and I thought about how you liked New York and you always drew flowers, and don’t ask me why I still remember these things, I’m fucking creepy.

Super fucking creepy, because I kept going around the block and drove past that tiny shop like five times.

I just

Seeing your name makes me feel better.

I have my name thing. Once I see it, I can’t let it go.

J

 

\-- 

 

Three Months Before  
July 28 2013

Marco,

I’m sitting in my squad car a few blocks down from the flower shop writing this.

I’m not going to go in. It’s too creepy.

And it’s just a flower shop, who cares?

It’s not you. But it’s the closest thing.

Sasha and I broke up.

The pressure of the wedding. The pressure of my parents, trying to plan every single detail of it. The pressure of so much on our relationship, of the future and economic balance and everything. Everything. We don’t have time anymore. We don’t have time to just be friends, because everything is money or the wedding or questioning, questioning, questioning.

She’s my best friend, and I lost her because she wanted to be my wife.

I don’t know what I’m sadder about, but I know I should be sadder about the second part of that sentence.

She asked me if I was even sure if I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

I haven’t looked up from living day to day and trying to survive. I haven’t let myself look up long enough to think about the rest of my life. I don’t really intend to either.

She broke up with me, and I don’t blame her. I just want her back -- I want my best friend back. Even if it means getting married, and becoming my parents, and sitting in this fucking car seventy years from now, staring at a flower shop.

J

 

\--

 

Two Months Before  
August 11 2013

Marco,

We took some time. Sasha figured a lot of stuff out. She called me this morning, and we met up to talk, and she wants to try again. If, she said, we push the wedding back, we make my parents stop breathing down our throats, and if I want this.

I said ok. I agreed. I’m moving my shit back into our apartment tonight, and I’m just... I’m excited to have my friend back. It’s so weird, not having her to call when I hear a dumb joke or a story about a perp I had at work that makes her laugh. 

But we haven’t had that for a long time.

I’ve driven past that flower shop every day since I found it. 

I don’t want to think about what everything means.

J

 

\--

 

One Month Before  
September 2 2013

Marco,

I realized yesterday that I never asked about Theo. The cop who made me want to be a cop. I was driving past the flower shop like I always do, and suddenly it struck me that I hadn’t thought about him in years.

Maybe I just blocked him out with the rest of it.

I’m not going to ask about him. I’m sure the Chief might now, or one of the older guys I work with, but I just... I’m a coward. I don’t want anyone to know how much that guy meant to me. And why.

Things are ok with Sasha. I’m trying not to be such a shit stain of a fiance and do things for her that I wouldn’t normally. She deserves it.

I’m trying to get used to calling her my fiancee again. 

Bert suggested this morning that I get her flowers before I go home. And I thought it was a good idea, but mostly because it gave me an excuse to go into that flower shop.

But I’m a coward.

I drove past that shop three times on my way home from work.

Go in, go in, go in, I kept thinking.

I know it’s not you, I know it’s probably some little old guy with a cane and his hair-dyed wife or some shit like that, I know. But I just.

I don’t want to lose your name on the shop. I don’t want to lose that.

So I went to a different shop, a few blocks away, Forget Me Not’s. Who names a shop that? Who names anything that? It’s so lame. And the flowers were crap.

I gave them to Sasha anyway. 

I’ve accepted that I’m going to be exactly what I said in that letter before. A fat old cop, nearly out of commission, still driving past Bodt’s Flowers, never getting the courage to go in.

J

 

\-- 

 

Two Weeks Before  
September 19 2013

Marco,

things are getting worse with Sasha. 

I hurt everyone that I love. 

I want my friend back.

I want to go back two years, when we were nothing more than friends.

I want to go back six years.

I want to do more than drive past a flower shop and stare so hard, trying to see inside, that my eyes hurt and I nearly take a pedestrian out.

But I can’t.

That’s not how life works.

J

 

\--

 

One Week Before  
September 31 2013

Marco,

my mom asked me to write my vows. The wedding is still in a few months, but she wants to make sure I don’t leave it to the last minute.

The only thing vaguely romantic I could think of was “I will love you more every day.” When I showed it to Sasha, she said it didn’t sound like something I'd say.

But I did. I said it once.

J

 

\-- 

 

One Day Before  
October 6 2013

Marco,

Sasha’s not even talking to me today. I don’t blame her. I keep sleeping at the precinct because my shifts run so long, and it’s been going on for weeks, and at first she hated it, and then she understood, and now she sounds relieved.

I get out of work at 5:30 tomorrow. Usually the days I get out early make me happy, but now, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. 

The flower shop doesn’t make me feel better anymore. But I still keep driving past it. And sometimes, I stop, and I unbuckle my seatbelt, and I think about it.

And then I drive away.

I need more. I need more than this.

J

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aren't you glad there's another chapter ^.^


	11. Out Through The Curtain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Salt tasting tears, they roll off of my lips / one for each day I'm inside this house, it's a trap / one I can't quite escape so pretend that it's the place that I love... / place all your best and watch me lose / the life that I got but never used... / my heart beats way too fast / to let regret sit in my lap. / Won't let it pass me by again. / Won't let it pass me by again."
> 
> \-- The Hush Sound, "Out Through The Curtain"

Timing is everything.

A few seconds. A few minutes. A few wrong words.

Six years.

Timing is everything. 

 

\-- 

 

Eight Hours Before

This is what people saw when they looked at me.

I was Officer Kirschtein. I was a decorated member of the New York Police Department. I was a quiet dude, I was intense, but I did my job well, and what friends I   
had could vouch for me.

I was getting married in a few months. I was a fiancé. I was in a happy relationship with my best friend, my partner. I was happy.

And in reality, the last part of that had been teetering on the edge for so goddamned long, I didn’t know where I stood anymore. I remember sitting at my desk that morning, staring at the plexiglass of the cubicle dividers in the back room of the precinct, and I remember my back aching because I’d spent the last few nights sleeping there. The bunk beds were awful, and no matter how many times I slept there at the precinct instead of going home, I couldn’t get used to them.

I was all of these things to so many people, and then my phone rang -- not my work phone, but my cell phone, vibrating in my pocket. And suddenly, I wasn’t. 

Once I’d glanced at the number, I left the back office and waited until I was outside, squinting in the morning sunshine, to answer. 

“Baby,” I said, “I’m at work.”

I didn’t call Sasha ‘Baby’ because it was a pet name and I was showing affection. If I wanted to do that, I would have resorted to something sickly and gross, like honey. I called her ‘Baby’ because that was what I always called her, even before we started dating. A joke, an undertone of our friendship.

It made things so much worse, because she understood as soon as I said it. If she hadn’t already been crying on the other end of the phone...

“Jean..” Sasha started, then stopped, taking a deep shaky breath.

I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. Trying to feel like I should in a situation like this. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t feel anything. I hadn’t for a long time. 

I lowered my voice and made it sound as worried as I could. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Do you want to marry me?” Sasha said outright. 

I was so fucking thrown by the question, out of nowhere like that.

But it wasn’t out of nowhere. I just couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think of what the right thing to say would be.

Sasha took the silence as my answer.

 

\-- 

 

Seven Hours Before

Forty minutes later, and I was single.

“Why are we doing this?” Sasha kept asking.

“Because you’re important to me,” I said quietly. “You’re my best friend, and you’re important to me, and I don’t want to lose you. I love you, Sash.”

Sasha was quiet for a long moment before she said, “don’t you think ‘I love you’ should have been at the top of the list?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. I walked into the shade of the trees surrounding the back parking lot, turning my back to the precinct. 

“Why doesn’t it feel like it’s enough?” she said suddenly.

“Enough for what?” I asked.

“Enough for everything... Enough of a reason to get married. The bridal boutique lady today kept talking and talking about true love and commitment and all of this romantic bullshit, and I just...” Sasha swallowed. “Why doesn’t it feel like that?”

I had never heard her say anything like this. Not in the last two years. Not in the last few months, when the fighting and the tenseness had been at its worst. Not even when she’d broken up with me a couple of months ago.

It was exactly how I’d been feeling. She’d found the words, and she was brave enough to say them.

I was furious. I’d spent all these years making excuses and trying so fucking hard. Was it all for nothing? Was it really all for nothing?

“Are you serious?” I said, my voice getting lower with anger. “Are you fucking serious? Are you really asking me if our relationship meets the standards of some pretentious fucking wedding dress salesman, who gets paid to spew that bullshit?”

“Yes,” Sasha said forcefully. “I’m trying to figure this out, ok? I’m trying to figure it out before we’re both even more unhappy than we are right now.”

“I’m happy,” I said harshly.

“I’m not, Jean. I’m not.”

“Well then what the fuck do you want to do, Sasha? Do you want to just split, and get it the fuck over with? What do you want me to do?”

“Can you come home?” Sasha asked. “So we can talk about th--”

“I’m at work.”

“Jean...”

“No. You’re the one who started this over the fucking phone. I can’t believe this.” I was so fucking angry. But then again, I was always angry.

I hated myself for this. For the sound of tears in her voice. For my warmest, brightest friend crumbling to pieces because I didn’t know how to love her the way that she wanted to be loved. Because I’d only ever loved one person like that, and look how that fucking ended up. I didn’t trust it anymore. I wasn’t capable of it. I knew that I would just fuck it up.

But Sasha was right. She deserved that.

We kept talking. Or really, she kept talking, trying to explain, and I tried to listen without throwing my phone across the parking lot. I wasn’t angry at her. I don’t know why I was angry. It was the only thing I felt truly anymore.

“This isn’t what this is supposed to be like,” Sasha said quietly at one point. “We’re not supposed to fight this bad, and then get married.”

“You’re my best friend,” was all I said.

“I know. I know, honey. You’re mine, and I don’t want to lose you. But I just... I don’t know. This isn’t what I want it to be like.”

“Well what do you want?” I asked roughly.

I’d try my best. I’d try my hardest to give her whatever she said. She wanted me to work less? Fine. She wanted me to buy a fucking house in Connecticut and leave the city? Ok. She wanted me to get a second job for more stable income? I would do it. Whatever she needed. I wouldn’t let her down. If the only way I had to keep my best friend was to marry her, then that’s what I was doing.

Sasha was quiet for a long time before she spoke.

“I want romance,” she said finally. “I know that sounds selfish and stupid, but for fuck’s sake, Jean. There has to be more to love than just best-friend-love -- I love you, but I just -- have you ever felt butterflies for someone? Have you ever?”

Yes.

I avoided the question and redirected.

“Not all relationships are like that,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just because we’re not Romeo and fucking Juliet doesn’t mean that we don’t work.”

“We work,” Sasha said, “but I want more than that. I don’t know. There has to be more than that. They wouldn’t right great big stupid love stories if there wasn’t, would they? I just.. I want passion. I want emotions.”

“I don’t have emotions?”

“You do, honey. But you don’t show them to me.”

That hit home. But the worst part was, I didn’t feel embarrassed, thinking to myself -- you’re right, I should be more open. I just stood there, feeling my chest tighten, thinking -- why would I?

Sasha took a deep breath again. “You’re my best friend, and I want you to be happy, Jean. Happier than this.”

“Just because you want something better doesn’t mean you’ll find it,” I said before I could stop myself. “And if you find it, you won’t get to keep it. You’ll think you get to spend forever with someone, you think that’s it, you’re done, you found them, you found the one, and then it’s gone. You fuck it up.”

And when I realized what I’d said, I shut my mouth. That was the most I’d ever said about M to her. My chest felt suddenly, achingly empty.

Sasha said finally, “if that’s in reference to you and me, then I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I don’t think it is. And whoever broke your heart like that makes me even more sorry, Jean. But the fact that we’ve been together, and I still don’t know what made you hurt like this... I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I won’t find any better. But I want to try.”

I didn’t want to hear it anymore. I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t want to feel the weight of her wishing I could love someone on my shoulders. I wanted it to end. Not my relationship, because I didn’t know how to get by without the support of my greatest friend. My fianceé. I just wanted that phone call to end. I wanted to forget.

“So is this it?” I asked roughly.

“Yeah.” Sasha’s voice was small.

“All the best.” And I hung up.

 

\--

 

Six Hours Before

I should have called back and apologized.

I sat at my desk again, sifting through paperwork I had to file for the court, and I kept looking at my work phone, feeling the guilt.

I should have told her that she was right. I should have let her go.

But it was just another person I loved that I hurt.

I sat there, frustrated, angry, embarrassed, and I just...

 

\--

 

Four Hours Before

I was just so determined to not feel anything at all.

I couldn’t let Sasha go because I cared about her to my very depth, and I didn’t want to hurt her the way I hurt everyone else who loved me. I didn’t want to add her name to the list and keep walking. I needed to try.

But right then, I needed relief. And there was only one place I could go for that.

I got up from my desk and grabbed for my jacket, throwing it on over my uniform. When Bert looked up at me from the desk opposite, I offered him a quick excuse of going to get food, trying to keep my voice steady.

A strange expression crossed his face, and Bert didn’t say anything. He nodded.

I left before he could ask me what was wrong.

 

\--

 

Three Hours Before

I parked my squad car down the street from the flower shop, and I just sat there, staring at the peeling gold lettering on the front window. Bodt’s Flowers.

My heart stopped beating so fast. It made me steady.

It also made me a fucking weirdo, but hey, I had my uniform on, and an excuse ready in case anyone asked.

In case the real owner of the shop -- not the boy from college I wanted it to be, but probably some creepy old lady or something -- came out and started complaining that I came by here every day.

I just sat there, my eyes and my head and my back and my chest aching. I was so exhausted. I was desperate and pathetic and holding on to the name of a memory that I tried not to touch anymore. That I never ever talked about.

But I had brought him up today.

I stared at the name on the front of the shop until my mind was quiet again. The option to go in was there, and for a moment, I considered doing it.

I had never gone in before. I could do it today, I could stand in the middle of the store and close my eyes and try to find the meaning in the flowers. 

 

\--

 

Two Hours Before

I had unbuckled my seatbelt. I had turned my car off. I had already developed my excuse -- I was getting flowers for Sasha, so that she would take me back, and we could work it out. There I was, prepared to be nothing more than a cop in a flower shop.

I got all the way to my hand on the car door.

But I couldn’t do it.

I had already lost Sasha that day, and with her went all of my security. Everything I thought felt right about my future. 

I couldn’t lose him, too. I couldn’t find out for sure that this flower shop was just a coincidence, and there was someone else behind the counter, and every day that I’d spent driving past meant nothing.

I couldn’t lose him again. Even if it was just his name.

My phone started vibrating on the passenger seat, Sasha’s name flashing across the screen, and just like that, I was folding back into myself. I had to take my hand off the car door to answer the phone. And while we talked -- about me sleeping at the precinct, about apologies and trying to understand, going nowhere -- before I even realized, I had my seatbelt on, the key in the ignition, and I was driving away.

 

\--

 

One Hour Before

“Where the hell did you go?” Reiner asked when I got back to the precinct. 

“Food,” was all I said.

Bert didn’t say anything about the fact that I had brought nothing back with me.

 

\--

 

Fifty Minutes Before

It’s not that hard.

Sasha wants emotion. She wants passion. I used to have all of that. 

I used to laugh with her, so hard that my stomach hurt. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know when it stopped. I don’t know why it was so easy to cry from laughter in front of her, but not for anything else. 

Crying in front of her would be all it took. She wanted me to express how frustrated and lost I felt? Ok. She wanted emotions? Here they are. 

But I couldn’t do it. And the part of my brain that I tried so hard to fucking kill reared it’s ugly head, and it thought about a boy in college, waking up shaking and breathing like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. And the boy who woke up beside me, and the warmth of his hands when he felt for my face in the dark and wiped my tears, still half asleep. And the freckles that I knew were scattered across his knuckles.

Stop. 

Fucking stop. Just let it fucking go.

 

\--

 

Thirty Eight Minutes Before

I don’t know why I kept thinking about him that day. I never let myself anymore. Even when I wrote the letters in my notebook, I wrote his name at the top last. I kept it there out of habit. My last connection to him that I let myself have was that shop.

I sat at my desk, hating myself because my engagement had ended and all I could think about was this.

This, and the fact that when my shift ended at 5:30, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was heading right back up the stairs to the precinct’s dorms, straight for the bunk bed I’d claimed, right back to being alone.

Christ.

\--

 

Seventeen Minutes Before

It occurred to me as I was clocking out at the end of my shift that my excuse for going into the shop before was actually a logical plan. Sasha wanted emotion, she wanted passion, I would try. I would go get flowers and show up at the door of our apartment, I would tell her how important she was to me, I would lay it on as thick as I could stomach. I love you, I love you, I love you. 

It was a good plan.

I sat in my own car in the parking lot, staring at the dashboard, trying to work up the nerve. Because I finally had a better reason to go into the flower shop than the name on the front.

 

\--

 

Twelve Minutes Before

I could always go to the one down the street instead.

\--

 

Nine Minutes Before

What if it wasn’t him?

\-- 

 

Eight Minutes Before

What if it was?

It wouldn’t be. I knew that. I focused on that as I drove. It made me brave. It made me scared. 

\--

 

Six Minutes Before

I had to do this. I was at my breaking point.

Traffic was awful.

Fate was awful. 

I had to do this.

 

\--

 

Four Minutes Before

My stomach was knotting painfully. My mouth was dry. I sat in my car a few blocks down from the flower shop and felt my throat tightening. I was angry, I was scared, I was angry at myself, I was scared for myself, I was baiting my breath trying to decide if I should do this.

I was feeling more than I had in years.

The actual purpose behind the trip felt a little fuzzy.

 

\-- 

 

Two Minutes Before

I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t go in. That’s all I could think. 

\--

 

One Minute Before.

I got out of my car, keeping my eyes on the sidewalk, brushing my fingers against the peeling gold paint on the window as I passed.

Do this, Jean Kirschtein.

Be brave for once in your fucking life.

I took a deep breath and opened the door of the shop.

 

\--

 

There was a string of bells hung over the door that rang so loud when I walked in that I cringed. All I could think was great, I wanted to blend in, and now the whole goddamned U.S.S.R. knows I’m here.

I went into one of the aisles before I gave myself the chance to look at the person behind the counter. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman from my first quick, blurry glance. And it was a good thing. The longer I waited to be disappointed that it wasn’t him, the better. I stared at the flowers in buckets along the aisle and tried to focus on what I was actually doing here.

Sasha, Sasha, Sasha. Come on.

“We’re closing early today,” said the florist. It was a guy, his voice deep and warm.

“I’m dead if I don’t get these flowers.” My voice sounded so weird and stilted with anger, but I spoke the truth. I didn’t know where my life was supposed to be going without Sasha and a wedding for my parents to plan dictating everything.

“You’re the last one,” the guy allowed after a minute.

I tried to sound nicer. “Thanks.”

I didn’t let myself wonder if I recognized the voice. My heart was pounding.

I wandered through the aisles, trying to focus, pulling on the plastic wrappers of bouquets, one hundred percent fucked if I had any idea at all what kind of flowers you buy for a situation like that.

This was so stupid. I was so stupid. 

“You need any help?” the florist asked.

“No,” I replied. “I can do the whole romance bullshit. I got it.”

I could do it. I could. I used to be able to. It used to be so easy for me to love someone.

The florist guy was sweet. “Well I can do something custom for you if you want,” he offered.

I frowned, about to say no, but I wouldn’t have known the difference between a flower and a hydrogen bomb at that point. So I said, “yeah. Yeah, ok.”

And then I realized that it meant I had to talk to the guy.

It meant I had to look at him. It meant I had to face the fact that the only connection I had with someone from a thousand years ago meant absolutely nothing.

But I made myself walk towards the front. The guy was nice. And the flowers had a purpose. I tried to ignore my regret.

The florist had bent down behind the counter, getting supplies. I could only see his back.

I just wanted to get in and get out as soon as possible. I just wanted this to end. I grabbed a random bouquet of roses off the sale rack nearest me and put them on the counter, deciding right there, once and for all, that there was no way in hell I was ever driving down this street again.

“Just these,”I said quietly, “Please.”

Please make this end.

New York City was big enough that I could always find somewhere else. Maybe there was a Bodt’s Bakery, or a little Italian place named after a guy called--

The florist stood up, towering taller than me, his mouth curving in a customer service smile when he started to ask, “what kind of--”

“Marco?” I said.

And I smiled.

My first clear thought, honestly, was holy fucking goddamned shit.

He got so hot.

The twenty year old I remembered from college was cute. This guy that stood in front of me was fucking drop dead. But it was him. He was the same, even though his chest had filled out under his dark apron and his shoulders were broad, his arms muscled and tensed in the collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It was him. His hair was cut shorter where it used to be scruffy, and buzzed around the ears like mine, but it was still so thick and dark, and that cowlick that never did what he wanted stuck up like before, he was the same, it was Marco.

The freckles. Oh, the freckles.

My heart felt like it was expanding too big for my chest.

“Jean,” Marco said softly. 

“I can’t believe it’s you,” I said out loud before I could stop myself.

Marco’s eyes moved the way mine must have; all over me, taking in everything. His face had blushed a deep red, but mine was burning, too, because I don’t know. How do you handle something like that?

I stared and stared and stared. Christ, those eyes. Those hands. The long edge of his jaw and the five o’clock shadow. Christ.

It took me a minute to realize that I should say something instead of standing there, drinking him in like a pathetic freak.

“This is crazy,” I managed. “I didn’t know this was your place.”

Marco smiled slightly. “It’s called Bodt’s Flowers.”

“I know,” I said without thinking, “that’s why I came in here--”

I stopped, feeling the blush creep all the way to my hair. 

The smile. His smile. It was the first time I’d seen it in six years. I couldn’t think straight for a minute. I tried to act like I didn’t cared. “I go by here a lot,” I continued, “I work in the neighborhood. How have you been, man? It’s been so fucking long, five years?”

Marco glanced away from me just for a second. But I knew. I knew he was thinking the same thing that I was.

Six. It was six years this December. Why had I pretended like I didn’t remember?

We stood a few feet from each other, only the counter between us, and we pretended like that thought hadn’t happened.

“I’ve been great,” Marco said. “I’ve got this place going...”

“That’s great,” I replied. Please smile at me again. Please.

He crossed his arms casually across his chest. “And you... You’re a cop, huh?”

I grinned. “Yep. NYPD. Sorry to say I grew up to be a badass.” I felt so stupid, saying that, but that was what I normally say, and I don’t know. I gestured to the gun sling on my hip, feeling lame. “I have to use this thing a lot, all those parking tickets.”

I just couldn’t stop smiling. I was stupid and lame, but I couldn’t.

Marco turned away. His hands moved over the work station he had set up, reaching for the scissors and setting to work on the bouquet that I had picked out. He started cutting them from their plastic and wrapping them in nicer paper, and I didn’t say anything because I was too busy watching his hands.

Too busy trying not to feel how uncomfortable he was around me.

Trying not to remind myself that it was all my fault.

Trying not to feel the weight of six years pressing on my shoulders.

I missed you, I thought. And you might not have missed me.

He didn’t even want to look at me.

“So who are these for?” Marco asked, his eyes on the flowers. “Are you apologizing to someone you busted? I think I saw that on a cop show once.”

“Oh, no...” It took me a long moment to remember what the hell I was doing here in the first place. I tried to play off how flustered I felt with yet another stupid joke. “No, the guys I haul in send me flowers for not breaking their wrists. These are for my fiancée.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I was so used to calling her that, but she wasn’t that anymore. I was about to correct myself, open my mouth to explain and tell him everything--

But Marco turned where he was working and stared at me with those big whiskey eyes, and I couldn’t find my voice.

“Jesus,” he said, “you’re getting married?”

No. Not anymore. But yes, I was hoping. That’s what the flowers were for. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.

I didn’t know what to say.

I missed him so much my lungs hurt, and I didn’t want to lie to him. But I didn’t know the answer to that question. 

So I redirected. “Don’t sound so shocked,” I said, trying to lead into an explanation--

“If anyone’s allowed to be shocked, it’s me,” said Marco.

 

And I just. I remember standing there, and feeling devastated. I remember thinking, six years ago I had left him so he could be happy.

What if he had just spent it as miserable as I was? Was it all for fucking nothing?

And the smallest part of my brain, starving for light and bitter with neglect, whispered -- you could have married him by now, if you’d just had the balls. Coward.

Marco smiled at me again, and I couldn’t focus on anything anymore. Just that. 

“Congratulations, Jean,” he said. My name in his mouth. 

“Thank you,” I said, too overwhelmed by the sudden rush of guilt to even think straight to explain. “And thanks for the flowers. Hopefully they help. I’m gonna need all the fucking help I can get.”

I was referring to that moment. I was referring to the fact that I had no idea what was happening to my life. And the fact that every feeling I’d put on hold for the last six years had been for him, and feeling them so suddenly made me want to start shaking. That’s what I meant.

It took me years to realize that everything I said like that, open and abstract, Marco took as a direct reference to Sasha. 

Sasha wasn’t even on my mind. We had broken up. She wanted a Romeo. And here was my Romeo, trying not to make eye contact with me.

Sweetheart. Sweetheart. My sweetheart. 

I fought the sudden urge to say it so hard that when I finally did speak again, my voice was hushed.

“You look good,” I said. “You look really good, Marco.”

He glanced up at me from where he hovered over the cash register. “Thank you,” he said, dropping his eyes again before he told me the price of the flowers.

“What are you doing tonight?” I blurted out.

He looked at me again, and this time, his eyes stayed. “I, um-- I’m actually going to a party. One of my buddies just got back from his tour of duty in Afghanistan, so we’re celebrating... That’s why I’m closing early,” he added, sheepish. So cute.

“Oh.” I rubbed the back of my neck, my face hot again. “I thought. No. That’s great. Yeah.”

I don’t know what I thought. What seemed like a good option, spending all night reminiscing about the good old days? I loved you and you were a part of me that I tried to put away, and now you’re here, and I still feel the same.

I could always have asked him on a date.

The only reason the thought didn’t terrify me was because I’d spent so many years protected, safe in my relationships with Kaitlyn and Sasha, that I didn’t feel anything at all anymore.

“What?” Marco asked slowly, his mouth curving slightly.

Well I guess I had started feeling again, because I was embarrassed as shit.

“I just thought it would be cool to... catch up,” I said finally.

Marco glanced at the old clock on the wall above the counter, then handed me the receipt for the flowers. And then he smiled at me. For real. A grin, playful and warm.

And I was the boy in college, falling in love with him all over again. It took everything in me not to lean over the counter, pull him towards me by the strings of his apron, and kiss him.

I had to violently remind myself that he most likely didn’t feel the same way. It would be a bad thing if he did. I had fucked him up, and then I’d left, and I just... A part of me didn’t want him to do anything but hate me.

But Marco was smiling at me like that, and he said, “Come with me to the party, if you don’t need to get these home right away.”

 

*

 

I read somewhere once that actual romantic feelings are fleeting. You fall in love with someone, and then the longer time goes on, the longer you’re together, the more it fades. It’s true. I believe that it’s true.

But the difference with me is that I kept falling in love with Marco all over again. In different ways. Just when I thought I was losing him or going crazy, I came back for more. At different times. We were apart for six years, and then there were were, walking down the street to a party together, laughing and talking and casually falling into rhythm as we walked.

We were strangers. All I had was a memory and a stamp on my college transcript proving that I had gone to art school for a semester. So when I fell for him again that night, it was because he was new. He was sexy. He was funny and smart. He was reflective and respectful and kind. That made him even sexier.

You change as you get older, you grow up, and I think that true love is meeting that person for the first time over and over again, and falling in love with him every time. Just when you think you’re losing it, just when you’re afraid of change, it happens. It happened after I was shot. It happened after Marco and I moved in together, and had to work out how to be with each other like a normal couple. It happened when my daughter was born, after all the months leading up to it full of stress and fear. 

I fall in love with you over and over again, Marco.

And by the time we’d walked a few blocks in the twilight together that night, my head was spinning.

We talked about a lot. I remember talking about the shop, and I remember how surprised he was that I remembered stuff about him. Like his hair, and his flowers, and his inability to keep paint off his clothes, so he always had the one specific nice shirt. 

How could I fucking forget? I hadn’t let myself think about it in a long time, but it was all still there.

I remember most crisply talking about Sasha. I was gushing about her, because she was my best friend, and I wanted him to meet her, and I was so fucking stupid. The entire time, all he heard was me talking about how great my fiancee was, and how happy I was without him. 

When I tell you that I’m bad with words, what I really mean to say is this: in the moments when it counts the most, you can absolutely trust me to say the wrong thing. But you can also trust me to act the right way. It’s what makes me a good cop. It’s what hurt the man I love so deeply, I almost lost him again. And it’s the way I got him back.

But I didn’t know that. I was standing there in the darkness, watching him talk to his friend when his phone rang. The way he moved his hands when he spoke, the worry in his voice. His care. His heart. His ass. I loved everything all over again.

And all I could think -- irrational and baseless as it was, because what could I offer him? Less than what I could in college. I’d spent years carefully crafting the perfect persona of a straight dude, I didn’t even worry about people looking at me and wondering if I was gay. I had seen children murdered in the street for being gay and talking about it. My dad had shaken my hand like I was a man when I told him I was proposing to Sasha. I was so deep in the closet that sometimes, I forgot I was in there at all. I was just this shell of a person, walking around and forcing myself, second nature, not to stare at an attractive man for too long.

And yet. All I could think was, I am never letting you go again.

I thought this to myself. And then the phone went dead in Marco’s hand, and he looked up at me, and said, “the party got cancelled, man.”

And suddenly, I was letting him go. My excuse for being near him was gone. 

“What happened?” I asked vaguely, trying to care.

“I think it was too much for him,” he sighed. “The party, all the people after everything he’s dealt with. Erwin just needs to feel safe again. And the arm thing...”

“What do you want to do now?” I asked quietly.

Stay with me. Stay. I’m so sorry.

Marco looked surprised by the question. “We could go get a drink, or... We could go get something to eat, or-- we don’t have to--”

He stopped. And I was glad. He was listing all the perfect excuses to be around each other for a little longer, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just sit across a table from him, I couldn’t spend hours pretending that we were just old friends from college. I’d seen him naked. He’d seen me having a panic attack. I knew what his middle name was. He’d told me about what it was like when his parents divorced. I held him. He held me. You don’t pretend something like that doesn’t matter.

Hypocritical, coming from me, right? But I had grown the fuck up in the last six years. And in that moment I was a fucking mess, and all I wanted was him. I pretended with everyone else, but not with him. There was no being friends.

That limited my options for spending more time with him the rest of that night, because he probably didn’t feel the same way, and he probably didn’t even want to talk to me. But I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t just walk away. Not again.

I was staring at Marco, thinking all these things, and I just.

I was the nervous, love-sick freshman again, sitting on the edge of the bed in my friend’s apartment and watching this wonderful person struggle to make eye contact with me. I didn’t know if he wanted me the way I wanted him. He probably shouldn’t.

But I said his name.

Marco looked down at me, his eyes wide and nervous and... craving. I moved closer to him, shifting the space between us until there was barely any. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. 

“Jean,” he said softly, his voice a breath that I felt on my lips.

I kissed him too hard. I kissed him like I’d wanted to for six fucking years. I kissed him in the middle of the sidewalk, not caring who saw; I never came to this side of the city, not really, and anyone who saw me wouldn’t recognize me. And right in that moment, the only thing I could think about was him.

We were in the middle of the sidewalk, and then we were against the siding of the apartment building, and the taste of him was so familiar my chest ached. I slid my hands under his shirt and touched everywhere I’d loved, his hips and his back, the smooth muscle of his stomach. It was different, but oh fuck, it was the same. Marco shivered at the touch of my freezing cold fingers on his skin, and I pulled him closer to me by the hips. He held on for dear life, his arms around my neck, and oh Christ, I was kissing him. I was kissing him, and I was home.

Sweetheart.

I kissed him until I was running out of breath -- I was desperate, I was hungry, I was memorizing -- and Marco moved his hands from my neck to my jaw, cradling my face. He held me so gently away from him so I could catch my breath. I didn’t want to. I wanted him. I had waited too long and fucked up everything too much to waste any time I had with him. I brushed my nose against his, leaning forward for more, pressing kisses into his palm and letting my lips trace his, a breath, asking him permission. Kiss me again. Kiss me forever. Kiss me until I’m dead.

Marco smiled slightly. His hands slid back to my neck, pulling me closer and tangling his fingers in my hair. And he kissed me so fucking soft.

I deepened it immediately. I was greedy, rocking my hips into him against the wall, finding any way that I could press my body to his, driving myself nuts. I wanted all of him. I wanted to make love to my boy, and I wanted to fuck this gorgeous man’s brains out. He was an old friend and a stranger at the same time, and I was fucking desperate for him.

“Please,” I choked out when we pulled away, gasping for breath.

“My place,” Marco said softly, “I-- my place -- three blocks away.”

This was convenient, because I was about to fuck him up against the wall right there in the street, and I’m a cop, and yes, that’s illegal. 

Fortunately, Marco has more self control. I remember he took my hand and held onto it tight that entire walk back to his apartment. We didn’t kiss again until we got into the elevator in his building. I couldn’t figure out what I felt more keenly: the intense need for him, or the simple bursting happiness of holding his hand.

I was nervous about being in public like that. But in that moment, nobody and nothing was going to keep me from him.

I have self control when it comes to absolutely everything else except Marco. Thank God for Freckles over here, because I came so close to ripping his clothes off in the elevator and just doing it right there. Marco caught my face in his hands again and smiled at how intense I was, and he kissed my cheek with a small laugh, and his smile was the real one, the smile that I missed. And for the first time all night, he looked at me with no hint of fear or caution in his eyes.

He just looked at me the way he always used to look at me.

The more alone we got, the closer we came to the boys that we were, until we were stumbling into his apartment, kissing each other senseless, and we were nothing but who we had always been.

There was a moment, standing there in his living room in the dark. We stared at each other, and the six years were there, but then they were gone, and it was just us. I was trembling. I was already hard, the blue slacks of my uniform uncomfortably tight; I wanted him, plain and fucking simple. 

But then that moment drew itself out in the silence, and I stood there wondering if he was going to change his mind. If he loved me the way that I still loved him.

Marco came towards me slowly. I stood still when he put his hands on me, running them down my chest through my t-shirt and then shrugging my jacket off my shoulders. Without a word, he pulled at the hem of my shirt, and I lifted my arms so he could yank it over my head; then he worked his fingers down the buttons of his shirt until they were loose, and he took it off. He kicked off his shoes. I followed his lead.

I let him show me what he wanted, staying still and holding back instead of kissing him like I had been. I let him show me what he wanted, and what he wanted was me. I let him touch my face, running his fingers across my cheekbones and my mouth like a blind man, holding my jaw when he kissed me so softly. We had gone from starving to tender so quickly, but that’s how we always were.

I pulled him toward me, my arms around his waist, and trailed kisses down the line of his neck. Marco moaned low in his throat and pressed himself against me, skin on skin, his bare chest hot against mine. He was the one who deepened it, unafraid, when our lips met again. 

I wanted him closer. I wanted him all over me. I wanted to be inside of him. 

I wanted him.

I drew his leg up to my waist, my hand under his knee, pulling him closer and closer, and Marco whispered breathlessly, “My bedroom... it’s...”

When he vaguely gestured toward the hall, I picked him up with my hand under his other leg, making sure both of them were wrapped tight around my waist. God, those long ass legs, and his arms tight around my neck.

I carried him to his bedroom. Not kissing him, for that brief moment. Just holding him. I just wanted to do that. Marco nuzzled his forehead against the side of mine and closed his eyes, his breath shaky. 

We slumped onto the edge of his bed together, and he tried to hold me in that position, not letting go with his legs or his arms; I shifted in his grip, pressing kisses to his collarbones and then undoing his belt and the button of his jeans, sliding them off his legs so he had to let go. I dragged his boxers down his thighs too, then took the rest of my clothes off. Only then did I come back to him. To the sight of his body arching, waiting for me, and his eyes, dark with want and... nerves.

I wasn’t used to the Marco that was afraid. Afraid that I would say no. Afraid that I would leave.

I never would again, if I had the choice. He made me alive.

I came back to him, and I surrounded him with myself. I kneeled over him on the bed and moved his legs back around my waist, my arms sliding around his head   
and my fingers in his hair, pressing my forehead to his. All of me to all of him. 

And I showed him I love him.

And I showed him for hours.

Just when I thought I would lose it, he brought me back. Quivering and shaking, my muscles like water. I saw nothing else but Marco.

We rutted like teenagers and fucked like strangers and made love like soulmates. Playful like best friends and familiar with each other’s bodies in the way you can only be with someone you loved. I knew exactly what made Marco’s neck arch back into the mattress and his whole body tremble around me, his fingers digging into my shoulders and my back when he held on. I knew when he was close, because the words broke in his mouth and he was nothing but moans and whimpers.

I was the one with the words. And all I could say was his name.

It had been six years.

I said it over and over until the height of my wrecked voice shattered it hoarse, Marco, and I was choosing to say instead of choosing to breathe, Marco, and I didn’t care if anyone fucking heard me, Marco, I didn’t care, because Marco.

And after, when we found our way under the sheets of his bed and curled up around each other, I remember thinking to myself, it’s you.

It has always been you.

 

*

 

I woke up the way that I always do. Afraid. 

But when my blurry vision started to make sense of the late morning light, and when I finally realized where I was, a thumb trailed gently along my cheek.

It took me a minute to realize. That I was lying on my stomach, awake, staring at Marco. That his hair was messy, slouched against the pillow still lying down the way he was, messy from sleep and from my hands. His eyes watched me cautiously, searching my face.

“Just me,” he breathed. 

I stared at Marco for a long time. Really, I was just trying to make sure that I wasn’t still dreaming. And then slowly, I moved under the covers and shifted onto my side, closer to him. I touched his face in the same way he touched mine, my thumb running along the shadow of stubble under his cheekbone. And I kissed him good morning, the way I used to.

Marco’s eyelashes only fluttered open after I’d pulled away and my fingers had trailed from his face.

“I think I remembered where every single one of your freckles is,” I said softly.

He smiled. “That’s impossible.”

“No, I remember.” I shifted over him slightly, leaning down and pressing my mouth to the inside of his upper arm. I’d already kissed the one just at the corner of his mouth, and now I wanted an excuse for my favourite ones. “You have a clusterfuck of them on your ribs,” I added.

Marco reached up and ran his fingers through my hair. I kissed the freckles on his shoulder, and he laughed sleepily. “Poetic,” he murmured.

“Look,” I demanded, then sat up and pulled his comforter back. Marco shivered at the cold, and the tremble ran up his spine, rippling in the muscles in his arms and chest. I touched the outline of his ribcage to the freckles that I liked best: the ones he’d gotten when he was little by accident, when his mom had trusted him to put on sunscreen by himself, and this idiot wanted to see what would happen if he left one part of his skin without it.

The result was a constellation that I could run my fingers across.

I missed these the most.

“See?” I said after a while, looking up at him. “I remember.”

Marco smiled at me, and for a while, we just looked at each other. It wasn’t awkward. It was me, making sure that my heart would stop beating so fast. It was him, making sure that I wasn’t going anywhere.

I pulled the covers back over us and moved around him until I was holding him, my arms around his waist. I buried my nose in his shoulder and closed my eyes, inhaling the smell of flowers and shower soap and fresh sketchbooks and sweat and my Marco. 

He leaned his face in my hair, and when he spoke, his breath was hot on my ear.

“You look older,” he mumbled.

I opened my eyes. “You do, too, you nerd.”

“I didn’t expect that.”

“Me neither.” But I never expected to see you again in any way. I will take the lines at the corners of your eyes and the hollows of your cheeks. I will take whatever I can get.

Marco kissed my hair, and when he settled into my arms again and let out a deep breath, I held him like that. We stayed still, our chests rising and falling with each other. After a while, I let my fingers trace the curve of his back, slowly and tenderly up and down his spine. 

And I said what I’d been holding back for hours. What I’d been holding back for years.

“Sweetheart,” I mumbled into Marco’s shoulder.

“Mmm.” He must have been half asleep. 

“I missed you,” I said quietly. “Every day, I missed you.”

Marco shifted just a bit in my grasp, and I knew he’d opened his eyes. 

“It’s been a long time,” he said finally. 

I let go of him and sat up, leaning on one hand and leaving the other on his hip. I stared down at him, feeling the weight of the doubt in his voice like someone had punched me in the gut. I wanted to tell him so many goddamned things. 

But all I said was, “Marco... Every day.”

His eyes widened a little, and after a long moment, his hand came to my neck and he pulled me down again, nuzzling his forehead on mine. His eyes slid closed, and I wasn’t sure how he felt, I wasn’t sure if I should keep telling him, or if we--

“You still call me Sweetheart,” Marco said.

I smiled. “I always have.”

“Only when you’re happy.” The corner of his mouth curved into a sleepy smile, and I kissed it. Then I kissed his nose, where the dark freckles smattered across the bridge. And then, finally, his mouth.

I was happy.

I had barely pulled away when Marco whispered, “Missed you. Since the day you left.”

That was the clincher for me. That was the ‘call out sick to work for the next week, hope he has enough food in the house, and never leave this bed’ signal. That was enough for me. It had taken so long, but he had finally said that he missed me. I was going to kiss him until there was nothing to miss.

And then my phone started vibrating in the pocket of my pants on the floor. We both looked up, and I got out of bed to find the damned thing, because I couldn’t ignore it if it was from work.

But it wasn’t work. It was Sasha.

I remember being hit so hard by the sudden realization that she was still an entity that I swore. Mother fucker. A night with Marco, and I had completely forgotten about my ex.

But it was Sasha, and I didn’t want to ignore her either, and I felt bad. I should have at least talked to her further about me moving out, or something.

I don’t know. Honestly, I had been too busy getting fucked into oblivion.

I knew that I should answer it. But in that moment, my mouth still tasted like Marco, and I sat down on the edge of the bed waiting for it to go to voicemail. I   
didn’t want to deal with Sasha.  
“Who was it?” Marco asked from behind me.

I turned around and saw him sitting up in bed, the sunlight from the window roaming in lines across his skin. 

I didn’t want to say that it was Sasha because I didn’t want to make him feel like he was my rebound. You know, I break up with her, half a day later and I’m sleeping with him. That wasn’t how it was. If anything, Sasha was my rebound for him. I hesitated, trying to think of a way to explain it that wouldn’t hurt his feelings, rubbing the back of my neck. 

Then I stood and pulled my boxers on. I decided that I would deal with Sasha first, before anything happened with him, before I said shit. Even if it hurt. Even if hearing Sasha cry made my stomach knot. 

I was two seconds away from calling her back when my phone started vibrating again, and her number appeared. I put it down on the dresser’s top for a second, then climbed back into bed with Marco. I tipped his head back with one hand and kissed him -- too hard, too much, but just so he knew. This is for you. I’m here for you now. 

Marco reached up to touch my face, but I loosened his fingers; no matter how much I wanted to stay with him, I had to answer the phone. I had to do this.

And for a long moment there, I genuinely thought that I was going to tell Sasha right then and there about Marco. About everything. About me.

It might explain some stuff. It might hurt her. It might be terrible. It might be a relief. Either way, I took the phone out into the hallway and closed the door behind me when I answered it.

“Hi, Baby,” I said quietly.

She wasn’t crying, thank god. “Hey, Macho Man. How are you doing?”

We managed to have an actually pleasant conversation. Like we were friends. But when she asked how the precinct was, I just...

I wasn’t ready to tell her I’d slept over Marco’s. I wasn’t ready to give anyone that. I’d just gotten him back, and with it all my emotions, and with that came the fear. 

So I told her the precinct was fine. 

She asked me if I wanted to meet up after work to deal with the whole moving, packing, living arrangements. I said yeah, sure, and marveled at the fact that this was probably the easiest goddamned break up I’d ever been through.

I didn’t know what that meant. It hurt a little. When she hung up and I pushed the bedroom door open again, I was quiet. I sat down on the edge of the bed and gave myself a minute to put it away, put all the thoughts about my relationship with Sasha into a little box and deal with it later.

Only then did I look at him.

I knew Marco had been crying right away, as soon as I saw the red under his eyes. He was staring at the ground, but I could tell. I was about to get up and hug him when he spoke.

“Was it Sasha?” He asked quietly.

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my eyes. 

“What did you tell her?”

“That I got called in for a night shift and slept the rest of it off at the station. There are beds, it’s like a dorm... I do it a lot.” I ran a hand through my hair, fidgeting so I wouldn’t get up to touch him. “She understood,” I added after a minute.

“Do you use that line a lot?” 

I looked up at him in surprise. “What?”

“Do you tell her you’re just sleeping it off at the station when you go off and fuck someone else? Does it work every time?” His voice was bitter.

And that. That was when I realized the mistake I’d made.

I’d called Sasha baby, but Marco didn’t know the joke. I’d sworn when she called, but only because I felt bad for ignoring her. I’d been gushing about her, I’d been offering to introduce them...

He thought she was still my fiancee. He thought this was me cheating.

Once again, my completely fucked ability to screw up everything with the wrong choice of words came shining through.

“Marco,” I said forcefully. “You’re the only someone else.”

I should have said you’re the only one, or you’re it. Or hey, how about a ‘I broke up with Sasha’? But I had just repeated what he’d said, I was surprised and upset and I could see the tears welling in his eyes. 

Sweetheart.

I got up and went toward him, taking his face in my hands and kissing him. Trying to make him feel better, trying to say in kisses what I couldn’t in words. Marco reacted frantically, way more than expected, hungry and deep and turning me right the fuck on. He kissed me, leading the way until I was gasping, and even then; I started to put my hands on his hips, my thumb tracing the edge of his boxers, but it was like I’d hit a sensitive spot. Marco pulled away from me as quick as he’d moved closer to me, stepping away, putting space between us.

He was gasping when he said, “No. No, I’m not doing this again.”

I stammered. “Sweetheart, I-- I can’t--”

Of all the fucking times to stammer and lose my words. 

I meant to say that I wouldn’t let him feel like this again. But it turned into I can’t let him feel like this again. And when I saw how angry Marco was, it just turned into I can’t.

His voice rose. “No. You don’t get to do this, we’re not doing this--”

“Marco--” I just needed to explain, just let me explain what the fuck happened--

“So help me God, I’m not letting you do this to me again, Jean. I’m not going to be your fucking secret.”

“I’m not asking you to be!”

I wanted him to shut up for five seconds so I could explain, but slowly, stupidly, it dawned on me. What he’d said. How he’d said it. 

What the hell had I done to him that made him so angry?

I knew exactly what I’d done. My chest ached.

Marco wouldn’t look at me. He turned his back to me and tried to keep his voice level, but I could hear it shaking. 

“No,” he said finally, “you’re not. You’re not asking me a fucking thing. You’re getting your clothes and leaving my apartment, and you’re leaving me alone.”

“Marco!” I said, desperate. Please. Please listen to me.

“I’m not doing this again,” he said.

“I’m not fucking asking you to!” I was getting angry with myself, so frustrated, because slowly, I was starting to realize that maybe I shouldn’t explain.

He wanted me to go. He thought that I was just hurting him all over again like I had before. And I was so absolutely fucking terrified that he was right -- and my track record showed it. I hurt everyone who cared about me. 

Maybe me telling him that I wasn’t cheating, I was single, would only hurt him more. Because then what? Would we pick up exactly where we left off in college, avoiding each other in public and reasoning away all the time we spent in private as just part of being platonic roommates? 

Six years is a long time.

I’d said that I wasn’t asking him to do this again.

“Good,” Marco said quietly.

My anger shot right to my head. “God damn it!” I yelled, “How am I supposed to walk away from this?!”

The question was meant more for me than for him. Because that’s what I was doing. I was letting him push me away so I didn’t hurt him again.

Marco didn’t say anything. He just watched me, his eyes unreadable.

I kept going. “Is that what you want me to do? Really? You want me to just walk out of here and pretend it never fucking happened?”

I needed him to say yes. I needed to hear it from him, so I knew that what I was doing was right.

“That’s what you did last time,” Marco said softly.

That was my yes. It broke my fucking heart. I didn’t know what to say.

I didn’t know how to leave him again.

Marco leaned down and scooped a random piece of clothing off the floor, tossing it at my chest. “Get out.”

This was the harshest I’d ever heard him. And I had done this.

“Marco--” I started, not sure where I was going with it.

Maybe a ‘Marco, I love you’ or a ‘Marco, don’t let me leave.’ Maybe ‘Marco, Sweetheart, I wouldn’t hurt you like this. Or ‘Marco, I already have, so don’t fucking believe a word I say.’

“I said get out,” Marco replied, his voice low. And then he left, pushing past me for the bedroom door. A few minutes later I heard him moving around the kitchen.

And I just thought, alright. We’re doing this again. 

I did it the way I left in college. I started with my clothes, finding everything of mine, making sure I didn’t leave behind something that would hurt him more. I would grab my t-shirt and jacket in the living room on the way out.

And I finished with saying goodbye.

I knew he would have post-it notes somewhere; I found them in the top drawer of his nightstand, and an illustration pen next to it.

Of all the things I could have said. Of all the things I’d thought, for a few hours, for one night, I’d finally get the chance to give him. I could only think of one thing to write.

Every day.

I’d promised him so many things, and that was the backbone behind all of them. All I wanted to do was spend every day with him. No bullshit. No fear. No homophobia. No miscommunications. No fuck ups. All I wanted.

But I got up. I put my pants on, got my shit, and I left him for a second time.

 

*

 

I did what I thought was best for the two people that I loved. So I left Marco alone. And I went to find Sasha.

I’d told Sasha that I would meet up with her after work, but I called in late to my shift and went to our apartment. I knew she would be home, she’d taken the last two days off to go dress shopping, and now that we’d decided she didn’t need to do that, she was probably binge-watching Dexter or something. 

I shouldn’t have gone to her. She was my ex-fiancee, for fuck’s sake. I shouldn’t have gone to her after cutting ties with my ex-boyfriend. But I needed my friend. 

She opened the door of the apartment for me; I didn’t want to invade or try to get in with my key or anything, I don’t know.

I couldn’t see straight enough to get the key in the lock anyway.

I hadn’t cried in six years.

When Sasha opened the door, I couldn’t stop.

And you know what it was? It was Marco. It was every vulnerable moment I’d had that stretched so far into my past that the happiest I’d ever been, smearing paint on his face and kissing him until he laughed, was nothing but a memory. It was just years and years’ worth of trying to tell myself I did the right thing, and then seeing him that morning, utterly wrecked by my shitty decisions.

It was just the simple blinding fucking force of the pain that came with losing him again.

And you know what Sasha thought it was? Me, finally expressing emotion and being honest with her about how I felt. Me, showing her how much I cared about her and our relationship. Me, losing my shit and wiping my eyes like a fucking five-year-old because I loved her so much.

I just let it be true. Most of it was true. I’d just forgotten.

And somehow, by the end of an hour, we were back together again. She slid her engagement ring back onto her finger and it was cold from sitting in the bathroom cabinet when she held my face in her hands and kissed me.

Then I got dressed in my bedroom. Left my stuff on my floor. It was my room again, because we were better, and we were back together, and Sasha just kept saying, “this is all I needed, honey. This is all I needed.”

I needed my best friend. I needed someone. So it was enough for me too.

I went to work an hour later.

 

*

 

Timing is everything.

If I’d called in sick for the day, I wouldn’t have gone in. And I wouldn’t have started talking to Bert while we were on our way out for rounds.

If I’d gone to work any earlier than I did, I would have gone for rounds with someone else. And Bert wouldn’t have asked me, just offhand, if I knew any good flower shops around. He wanted to surprise his girlfriend.

I told him there was one. It was a little farther out than we usually drove, but we met up with Reiner at some point during the route, and Reiner liked the idea of going rogue. 

If I hadn’t realized I’d forgotten my uniform shirt and the flowers I bought in Marco’s car, I wouldn’t have taken so long getting dressed. And I wouldn’t have thought about it, about everything, long and hard and painful and open.

I wouldn’t have suddenly steeled my resolve.

I wouldn’t have decided that no matter what happened or how much it hurt, if all I could do was look at Marco Bodt every day, then that’s what I was going to do. 

If I had to empty my bank accounts buying flowers every day just to see him, that’s what I was going to do. 

If I had to settle for being his friend, then every day, I would try.

But timing is everything.

And I pushed the door of the flower shop open, plunging in with my colleagues, and Marco’s eyes met mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise friends
> 
> thank you for reading <33


	12. Marching Bands of Manhattan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I wish we could open our eyes / to see in all directions at the same time. / Oh what a beautiful view / if you were never aware of what was around you. / And it is true what you said / that I live like a hermit in my own head / but when the sun shines again / I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in. / Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole / just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound. / But while you debate half empty or half full, / it slowly rises. Your love is gonna drown."
> 
> \-- Death Cab for Cutie, "Marching Bands of Manhattan"

I am not proud.

I am not proud of the decisions I made. Of the way that I treated the people I love. I will never be proud. I will never want to casually talk about it. I don’t even want to do it now.

I will not make excuses. I will not blow it off. I made mistakes. They’re mine to bear for the rest of my life. You think you’re mad at me? You’ve got no fucking idea. Years of therapy. Years. It was the only way I could let go of how much I hated myself, and move forward with Marco. We still go sometimes, if we can fit it in.

I still struggle with it. I still have whole days go by where I can’t bring myself to kiss him. Sometimes I still don’t feel like I deserve this life that I have.

These are the people that are most important to me in this entire fucking world, and for a while, I lost all of them. I lost Connie first -- I let him just sort of slide away, gone to his world in Vermont with his contracting job, like both of us were just too busy to call. But really, I was too deep in my own personal shit. So I let him go.

I lost Sasha next. Slowly, then all at once. I lost her, my funniest, most beautiful friend with all that warmth and all that sweetness and all that brutal honesty. I lost her before I even broke up with her; she was still lying in bed next to me, all those months, but we weren’t talking. We didn’t have sex, we didn’t say I love you, not once that entire three months before we split. Towards the end, we couldn’t even put aside all the stress of the relationship and just enjoy the friendship, and working together. I had to let her go. I had to lose her, because it was the only way I could get her back.

Same goes for Marco.

I watched all those months. I watched the toll it took on him. Every time I saw him, he looked more tired, more bruised. My indecision and his guilt were literally taking him farther and farther away from himself, from my Marco, from the smile and the softness and the strength that I had always loved. That I had given up for six years just so that I could be sure he would never lose it. And here I was, killing it with my own hands.

I am not proud.

Cheating was the worst way that I could have handled the situation. I was scared, yes, but I cheated. I loved my fiancee like a friend and loved my friend like a soulmate, yes, but I cheated. I was desperate to hold onto two people that I knew I couldn’t survive without, yes, but I did it in the worst way possible. I trapped them and promised them things that I didn’t know how to give. I...

I am not proud.

I spent so many years hating myself for it. I spent so many years watching Marco struggle with it, because if I cheated on Sasha with him, then who would I cheat on him with? Because you know what they fucking say. Once a cheater.

Never again. I will never cheat again, I swear on my fucking life. The only person that I want is here. 

Marco...

I’m so sorry, Sweetheart. For everything. For all of this.

I went through hell and I put you through hell to get where we are today, and it hurt you so bad, and I made every single fucking wrong decision I could make, and I would give anything to change it. I would bleed out on the floor for it. I almost did. I’d do it. I’d do it and I’d take all the pain and I’d take another bullet if it just meant taking that pain and that fear away from you. I know you hate when I apologize for this, I know you always tell me that it’s past, I know, but I just... I hope you read this, and I hope you feel this. I would give anything. You’re everything to me.

 

*

 

It’s fucking true when they say that when you hurt yourself, you hurt the ones who love you.

And even on that second day I went into the flower shop and promised that I’d come back every day if that’s what it took-- even then, Marco loved me.

I remember walking into that shop that afternoon really clearly. I remember the look on Marco’s face when he glanced up at me for only a second before he turned away. The anger. The hurt. The distrust.

That was what I deserved. But I just remember standing there in that line up to the counter, unable to focus on what Bert and Reiner were talking about. I was just so humbled by the loss of Marco’s trust.

I almost left then. Maybe I should have -- I should have respected Marco’s decision to not see me anymore, I should have stopped being such a jackass. Don’t think for one hot fucking second that I’d forgotten about Sasha. I knew. I knew that all I could possibly hope to have with Marco in that moment was friendship. I was engaged. I wasn’t intending to cross that line. I had nothing to offer him.

But I couldn’t not try. I couldn’t not have him in my life. I don’t know what kept me there. I don’t know what gave me the strength to stand there and wait.

I almost didn’t.

I shouldn’t have.

But I did.

And I’m so fucking glad.

I’m sitting here writing this, and I’m remembering how goddamned panicked I felt about losing him, about losing him for good, about saying the wrong thing, and I just want to punch my self all those years ago right in the face and say-- wait.

Just wait.

Wait for the day when you realize that all the pain and all the fear has been worth it, because it led you here.

Wait for the first time you kiss him in front of your friends.

Wait for your wedding day.

Wait for the house on a main street you’d never thought you’d walk, and wait for the flowers in the front door when you come home, and wait for the slow sex in the light that turns gold in the afternoon, and wait for the dog that makes you run around your backyard like you’re a little kid again, and wait for the sound of your daughter laughing in the kitchen, and wait for the smile your son gives you when you find him already awake in his crib, and wait for the man who saw the absolute fucking worst of you but still loves you. Every part of you. Good and bad. Forever.

Wait for the moment when you can do the same for yourself.

It will come.

I remember that day in the flower shop, and I remember Reiner and Bert milling around the flowers saying dumb shit while I waited in line, and I remember how angry Marco was, leaning forward on the counter, splaying his long fingers across the marble, and using his most polite voice to say, “what can I do for you, sir?”

“Cut the shit,” I replied. Stop pretending for one goddamned minute.

Marco looked up at me, his eyes dark with that distrust.

“I told you to leave me alone,” he said, his voice low.

I could have said a lot of things, but Marco makes me tell the truth.

“I can’t,” I said softly. “I’m not going to.”

Marco rocked back off his palms on the counter and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Officer Kirschtein, I don’t know what to tell you.”

He was turning away, and I heard the note of desperation in my voice even when I tried to keep it hushed.

“Just talk to me, Marco,” I begged. “Just talk to me.”

I saw the hurt then. I saw it when he looked back at me. He tried to hide it behind the anger. 

“About what?” he hissed. “Your fiancee?”

And then Marco really turned away from me, moving his hands along the work station, cleaning and organizing and oh god, those hands. I had to keep reminding myself that I was there to be his friend. That’s all I could have.

Still, it was something, and I had to try.

“You listen to me, Bodt,” I said quietly. “I’m gonna come to this damn flower shop every day if I have to. And you can’t kick me out, because I’ll buy something, and if I’m a paying customer then you can’t turn me away. It’s racist,” I added out of nowhere.

Marco whipped around, raising his eyebrows at me. “What the-- racist--”

I am the master of dumb things to say. But I kept a straight face.

“It’s against the law,” I managed. “I should know.”

“Why?” Marco said softly.

“Why is it racist? Jesus, Marco, what kind of--”

“Why are you doing this?” his voice hardened. “Why can’t you just call it a one night stand and walk away?”

Because you were my best friend.

Because I hurt you, and I want to make it right.

Because you take my breath away, and every other shitty stereotypical thing to say applies to you, and I don’t know if I relate so much to Barbara Streisand because I’m gay, or because of how I feel about you.

Because I missed the way you make me laugh.

Because come on, man, the sex is fucking fantastic.

Because I love you, and I never stopped.

I couldn’t say any of that without overstepping the boundaries I knew I had to keep. So I said the most mild thing I could think of.

“Because my shirt is still in your car.”

Marco frowned. “I’ll go get it for you.”

I hadn’t actually known if my uniform shirt was really still in his car. He could have thrown it away or left it in the street or tossed it into the Hudson, for all I knew. But Marco told me in that moment that he had kept it. The gross teenage boy in the back of my head was thrilled. I had to tell him to shut the fuck up, because what did it matter if Marco held onto my shirt? We were just going to be friends.

If he even wanted to look at me anymore.

Marco stared at the counter. “I’m not going to do it, Jean. I’m not going to be...” He shook his head, and looked up at me with those whiskey eyes. “They don’t even have a name for it. The other woman? I’m not gonna be the Male Aide to your Greasy Politician.”

That hurt. Greasy Politician. But he was right.

“All I want is to talk to you,” I insisted. “Be my friend again, Marco.”

Please.

Marco cleared his throat. “You’re gonna have to buy something, Officer, because I’m pretty sure you’re German, and me kicking you out does not qualify as racist in this state.”

And that was how I knew. No matter how much he disliked me, he still respected me. No matter how much he hated me, he still loved me.

He had said German, instead of throwing the fact that I was French in my face. Because really, he had heard me speaking French, he had met my dad briefly, he could have easily just said that, anyone else would have.

But he knew that being French was my weakness. He knew that French was the language that my family used to avoid me and ignore me. He remembered my hesitation about teaching him some of the words, because I really truly loved Marco, and I only knew how to do that in English. French and Italian and every other language have nothing on how intense and romantic the words are for me when Marco says “love you baby” with his thick American accent.

He remembered. He could have hurt me, but he didn’t. And that was how I knew that under the anger and the self-preservation, under six years’ worth of distrust and separation, he was still the same. He was as much my Marco that morning, smiling sleepy at me, as he was six years ago. 

And that was how I knew that I couldn’t let him go. Even if my only excuse was friendship. Whatever it took.

I bought Bert flowers for his girlfriend just to piss Marco off. Just so I had an excuse to be smiling like an idiot when I left.

 

* 

 

I kept my promise. I went into his shop and bought something every day. My buddies at the precinct asked me what the fuck I was doing when I’d come back from lunch break or after my shift with a bouquet or a plant in my hand. I told them that I had a bet going with a friend. They gave me shit for a while, but Reiner -- Reiner, my friend all the way from basic training, my brother, my workout buddy -- knew something was up. He knew that when I stuck to something and wouldn’t let it go, then it must be important. So he told everyone to shut the hell up. After that, I kept noticing that the bouquets I left still in their packages on the counters were unwrapped and put in jars and coffee cans full of water. 

I will be completely honest with you, I was a giant asshole. The mightiest of all the jackasses you’ve ever met. The whole first week and a half I kept going in there, Marco wouldn’t look at me, he wouldn’t say a word until he had to tell me the price of the flowers. I should have left him alone, I should have just taken the goddamned hint.

But, hey. When I won’t let something go, it’s because it’s important.

I didn’t give up. 

And by the second week, I knew Marco was waiting for me. On one day, there was no parking so I had to leave my car a couple of blocks away; I walked up to the shop from the opposite direction that I usually did, a few minutes later than usual. And I caught him leaning over the counter, craning his neck to see if I was coming. 

That teenager in my head? The voice that I kept trying to neglect and ignore and kill all those years? He started doing backflips. That’s gay as hell, but whatever.

There was no way I was giving up after that, even if Marco didn’t say anything to me when I went in the shop. I came every day, even if I didn’t have work, I showed up in my shitty old t-shirts and the only clean pair of jeans I had on laundry day, I didn’t care. I was seeing him.

And yes, I was still determined to just be friends with him. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me yet, but I have a hard time realizing that I’m falling in love until I’m in way too deep. I just wanted Marco to be my buddy again. I wanted him to talk to me.

And in the middle of the second week, he did. More backflips.

The flowers were piling up. I brought some of them home when I started going after work. When Sasha asked about them, I told her what I told everyone else.

It was cruel of me to not buy her flowers. We were getting married for fuck’s sake, she was spending time with my mother for the sake of the wedding even though it was like pulling teeth, I should have been spending all my money on Sasha for that. But I just couldn’t let her have Marco’s flowers. I couldn’t pretend that I had gone out for them specifically for her. That wouldn’t have been crueler.

I hope you know Sasha never lets me live down how bad I was at being a straight boyfriend. If she ever gets the chance to read this, then you know I’m sorry Sash, and I adore you, and yes, if you keep using our past relationship to guilt me into buying McDonald’s for you, I’ll keep buying it. I’ll take the flak from Marco. I owe you that.

Now, it’s a running joke. Then, it wasn’t funny. 

But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t let Marco go.

The day that I had to deal with the kid I’d booked multiple times with drug possession sticks out in my mind. It broke my stupid heart to get a report that he was dealing again, and then the kid resisted and nearly broke my stupid nose. I was bleeding, but I went to the flower shop anyway after that -- I still had a few minutes on my shift, and I just needed to see Marco. I needed to feel better. And then when he started talking to me, helping me with the blood on my face... I accidentally told him so. 

But hey, I’m embarrassing, and Marco blushed, and it was a start.

I slipped up a couple times in my huge quest to make him be my friend again. I said something too intimate, or got too close to him. I asked him about flowers because I loved how much he loved them. I brushed my fingers against his palm when I handed him my money. Little things that meant the damned world to me.

When Marco gave me somewhere to sit, because we started talking for real, our conversations ended up lasting hours. Once, he accidentally left the shop open until midnight.

When I was sitting at my desk at work one morning, trying to figure out how much money I had left in my debit account for the goddamned flowers, already thinking about going to see him, about the way his mouth twitched because he didn’t want to smile at me, but I made him smile, and I was thinking about the way his shirt lifted up and bared his stomach when he pulled his apron off, and of course I was thinking about his fucking hands, the way they moved and the last time they had been on me, touching my hair, running down my thighs, and suddenly all I wanted to do was close him into that tight space behind the counter and hear his breath quiver the way it always did when I came up close behind him, and my hands would slide around that stomach that bared when he took a deep breath and find his hips and the dark trail of hair between them, and you never forget how someone tastes in the same way that you never forget how blood tastes, it’s natural and it’s powerful and it’s older than you, and so is the rhythm that I find when I’m pulling at Marco’s clothes and rolling my hips against him and watching the way his shoulders move when he bends over the shop’s counter and I--

And I think getting a boner at work and having to figure out a way to hide it from Reiner and Bert counts as a slip up.

I was falling in love with Marco. Every part of him. The boy that I knew, the man I talked to every night, the conversations and the corny jokes and the painful realization that the last six years had been as hard for him as they were for me. I was falling in love with him. And I was telling myself that I just wanted to be his friend. History repeats itself, right?

Except this time, it was Marco who kissed me first. 

In the dark of the room full of bunks at the police station, the night that the first huge blizzard blew into New York and I was supposed to be on duty, prepping for accidents and power outages, but all I could think about was him. 

I’d dragged him upstairs where we could be alone. And all I kept thinking was, be his friend, be his friend, be his friend. But I had felt it. How close he had hovered to me in the kitchen doorway. The quiver of his breath on the nape of my neck before he turned away. And he had pulled me away too, so I was facing him -- too close -- 

And Marco had wiped the damp hair off my forehead, his touch so gentle.

I shouldn’t have been alone with him. I should have stepped away, I should have gone to find Reiner and made it a bro thing. But I made the decision. I was the one who led him upstairs and closed the door behind us.

I made this decision. I did. I chose it. I’m not going to blame Marco, he was single and he had tried his hardest to stay away from me. I’m not going to make excuses about how in love with him I was, or whip out a graph comparing my feelings for Marco with my feelings for Sasha. I cheated. I initiated a relationship outside of my own. I know that.

I don’t know how it’s possible to feel guilty and glad for the same thing. But this decision gave me my husband. And my children, and my job, and my damn dog. So please don’t judge me when I say that if I had the chance, I’d do it all over again.

I’d take him up to that room and close the door, and stand there in front of him, using the excuse of pulling him into the darkness with me to keep my hand on his chest. I’d listen to his breath in the dark all over again, just staring at him, trying to keep in mind that he didn’t want me the way that I wanted him. I was in college all over again, trying to hold myself back, trying to tell myself that it was better if I didn’t do anything. We would stop. It could stop there. 

And then Marco kissed me, gentle and firm. 

I would do everything over the same exact way if it meant kissing him like that. He wrapped his arms around my neck the way he used to, and I kissed him so slow, so soft, the way I’d wanted to. It wasn’t like my daydreams when my hands found his hips, because I just wanted to hold him. I just wanted him close. It was better than my shitty daydreams. 

I remember pulling away from him and saying his name, about to apologize. And I remember that Marco said exactly what I’d been thinking for that whole month. He found the words I couldn’t, and when he said them, tears slipped down his face. 

“I don’t know how to be your friend, Jean,” Marco had whispered. “I don’t know how not to love you.”

I cradled his face in my hands. I told him I loved him. I told him I would figure it out.

I regret a lot of things about my past. Wiping his tears away is not one of them.

If you’re going to judge me for that, then go ahead.

 

*

I told him that I would figure it out. What the fuck was there to figure out?

It could be simplified so easily. Leave Sasha. Tell her the truth -- that she was right, before I even found Marco again, she was right. There is more to love than friendship and being able to tolerate living together. Tell my parents that I’m gay. Deal with the consequences of that as they come, because hey, I’m an adult now, I’m not relying on them financially. And then be in the relationship that I always wanted with Marco. That’s it. That’s all.

Except it was all of my deepest and most vicious fears come to life.

Except my parents were so proud of me, and even if my mom was distant, my dad loved Sasha. He told me so whenever she was around. He smiled.

Except I was so afraid that if I had failed Marco before, wouldn’t I do it again?

Except I still loved Sasha, even if it wasn’t romantic. She was one of my best friends, my roommate, my partner on the force, my girl, and I wasn’t a fucking emotionless rock, I felt insanely guilty about going behind her back with Marco. She didn’t deserve that at all. And if I told her the truth -- which I would, because I respected her more than to give her some bullshit about just meeting him -- then the chances were high that she’d punch me in the face, throw my television out the window, and stop speaking to me. Honestly, that’s what I would want her to do. 

I couldn’t figure out a way to tell her without losing her. I couldn’t figure out a way to have what I wanted without hurting her deeply. Add another one to the list of people that I cause pain with my good intentions.

The longer I waited, the worse it got, and the more desperate I was. I was hurting her; we were fighting again, but over petty stuff, because Sasha didn’t want to go near the real issues, and I had Marco on the tip of my tongue.

Marco. 

It was so easy with him. I couldn’t stop telling him that I loved him. The clean up process for the blizzard was a real bastard, and I was working a bunch of overtime, which meant going to see him wasn’t an option. I was literally so desperate to hear his voice that I risked the chance of being caught at work just to talk to him, and we ended up talking on the phone every day for a week.

On that last afternoon that I got the chance to call him like that... I remember the conversation exactly. Don’t ask me why, it was just stupid and I was exhausted, but I remember. I was sitting at my desk with a pen in my hand and blank documents for the courthouse in front of me, but I couldn’t focus on anything but him. 

“I finally have a day off tomorrow,” I said into the phone, tracing my pen lightly up and down the margin of the court documents, leaving a thin line.

“Sleep,” Marco told me. “Get sleep.”

“Ok Mom.” I snorted, doodling unconsciously. A few shaded boxes turned into a flower and a set of hands.

I heard Marco smile. “Shut up.” He was quiet for a minute, and I knew he was probably focusing on his work, like I should--

I swore out loud when I realized that I had doodled all over the paper in front of me. The court document that I’d driven across the whole damn borough for.

But it was the first time I’d drawn anything in six years.

“You’re grumpy,” Marco said warmly.

“I’m not grumpy,” I grumbled, holding the phone between my ear and my shoulder so I could rub my eyes. 

You’re always on some various level of grumpy,” Marco murmured. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I said softly, glancing sideways to make sure that I was still the only one in the room. Bert and Reiner had gone out on a call. I decided to hell with it and kept drawing on the document, working the hands I’d drawn into more finished detail, adding fingernails and long joints and freckles.

“I want to come see you,” I added. “I haven’t bought any flowers in a while.”

“My business is tanking without you,” Marco deadpanned.

I snorted again. “I’m going to make you eat that sarcasm later.”

“Who are you threatening now?” asked a voice from behind me.

I looked up, holding the phone against my chest, and Sasha sat down on the edge of my desk next to me. She took her hair out of the ponytail, raising her eyebrows at the phone.

“It’s my buddy,” I whispered. “The flower guy.”

Sasha just nodded, working her fingers through her dark hair. She was unusually quiet, and that had me worried -- half for her, and half for the fact that two minutes ago, I’d said I love you to someone who wasn’t her. The guilt and fear was crushing enough to make me sacrifice any more time I had on the phone with him.

“Hey,” I said into the phone, “can I call you later?”

“Of course,” Marco said softly. And when he’d hung up, I slung the phone back into its holder and tried to sit back, relaxed, in my chair.

Sasha was chewing her lip, focusing too much on the ends of her hair. I thanked God and Satan and whoever was listening that I wasn’t Bert Hoover, because I kept my cool and didn’t burst out sweating like I felt like I would.

“You’ve been calling that number all week,” Sasha said nonchalantly. “It’s the shop? What are you doing, figuring out the flowers for the wedding behind my back?” 

I didn’t say yes. But my guilt must have been written all over my face, and whatever was going on in Sasha’s mind, she decided to interpret it like I had said yes.

“Jean!” she nearly shouted, her voice rising with excitement and surprise. “You did? Really? Oh holy shit, thank God, I had no idea how to deal with them or what to order, this is so freaking helpful.”

I just... She was happy. It was the first time she’d been happy with me in a while. I let the miscommunication slide. If I was going to tell her about Marco, then it wasn’t going to be at work anyway. 

I just shrugged. “You just have to talk to him... He knows what he’s doing, and I... I don’t know.”

“We should go see him tonight after work,” Sasha suggested, getting up off the desk and planting a kiss on the top of my head. “You said you’d talk to him later anyway. I wanna meet flower guy-- I wanna meet whoever is making you draw again.”

I made some excuses about having to drive to the courthouse again for the documents, and told her I would meet her there. It gave me an excuse to get there first and warn Marco. And when Sasha left the room, I crumpled the paper with my sketch of Marco’s hands and threw it in the trash.

 

*

 

I had been thinking so abstractly because of my guilt. I never thought that the two worlds of Marco and Sasha would actually collide. And then suddenly there I was a few hours later, on my way to the flower shop, terrified.

This would kill him. 

The guilt. The resolution. Meeting Sasha and seeing her and knowing that there was someone else whose feelings were at jeopardy would fucking wreck Marco. He would either be done with me, or force me into facing Sasha and all of my fears right there. I was terrified.

And when I got to the shop, I was suddenly living my daydreams, walking in without a word and pressing Marco up against the counter and kissing him deep, letting my fear do the talking and getting rough and ten seconds away from lifting him onto the counter and fucking him right there, getting desperate and trying not to panic when Marco’s hands and kisses steadied me and soothed me enough for some coherent thoughts to shudder through my head.

Don’t go. Sweetheart. Don’t go. I can’t lose you again. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.

It would be better not to do it like this. Not to tell Sasha with you here. 

I thought as rationally as I could about all the ways I could prevent that from happening, from pitting the two people I loved most against each other, and all I could think to say was--

“Do you still have my hoodie?” 

Marco was out of breath, his face burning with want when he looked at me, confused and dazed and hungry. 

“My hoodie,” I repeated softly, pressing my lips to his neck. 

“It’s at home,” Marco breathed, lacing his fingers in my hair. “I’ve been sleeping in it.”

That made me wince. All I could think about-- what if this was the end? What if he figured out I was really an asshole, and this was the last chance to hold him?

When Marco nuzzled his forehead against mine, he asked me why. Why about the hoodie.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” I said softly. And then I explained.

I watched Marco shrink. Not really, not physically. But I watched him understand, and slowly drag himself away from the man that he was with me. From the real Marco. I saw him realize that he had to pretend, and you know what the worst fucking part is? I saw him start to agree that this was better. Pretending was our only option.

I had done that to him.

This is the guilt that’s the heaviest to carry. I taught Marco how to pretend that who he was and what he wanted wasn’t as important as what other people thought.

“It’s ok,” Marco whispered to me. “We’ll get through this.”

And I just thought to myself, I don’t deserve you.

I didn’t know how to say it. Not the way I know how to now. But I remembered feeling it.

I just focused on that moment with him. One last quiet moment of him before I might have to give him up.

“You sleep in my hoodie?” I murmured, biting my lip.

Marco wrinkled his nose. “It smells like you,” he mumbled.

“Not fair.” I smiled slightly into his cheek. “I want one of yours.”

“There’s one in the back. It’s got paint on it, though...”

“Perfect.” I kissed his cheek and forced myself to let go of him.

And that is how I ended up introducing Sasha to Marco. Wearing his hoodie from college -- one that I’d stolen from him a few times years ago, one that I’d fallen asleep in too -- while making plans for my wedding and christmas dinner with her. 

If you judge me for anything, judge me for this. Judge me for kissing Sasha in front of him. Judge me for standing there, my whole body too light and too tense with anxiety, working so hard to avoid the first panic attack I’d had in years because I didn’t know how not to love either of them, and I didn’t know how not to hurt them.

So I went along with it.

Judge me for that.

 

*

 

I was right. About the impact that Sasha would have on Marco.

I knew that he would love her. It’s hard not to. One of the first things I’d thought about her in our friendship was damn, I wish Marco could meet you.

And when he finally did, it was under these circumstances.

I knew he was pretending. I knew he wasn’t even letting himself think about it, because he wanted me so much, but he couldn’t bring himself to have me if it meant hurting someone else. And now that someone else wasn’t just a number on my phone and a name that I avoided saying around him. It was Sasha. It was real. She was real.

And I watched it tear him apart.

Slowly at first. He still smiled at me. He still called me baby. I did what I could. Even if it was as shitty and minimal as holding his hand under a tablecloth so no one else could see. He tried to respect me. He didn’t say anything.

And then that night ended with us nearly fucking walking away. 

I loved him. I couldn’t let him go. I tried. I fucking tried. It was as simple as that. I should have let him go, I should have let him walk away and try to find happiness with someone else, because he was definitely never going to find it with me.

I almost let him go. Right there in the street.

But I was selfish. I was stupid. I was cruel. I couldn’t face a whole lifetime’s worth of the way I’d felt in the six years without him.

My life is empty without Marco.

I waited a week. It was hard to breathe. 

That’s not a romantic statement, that’s a description of my anxiety. 

I had finally gotten to the point in my life where my relationship with the man that I love was more important than what others thought about it. I was scared of what my friends and family would say, yes; I was scared that it would affect my job, that it would change the way my colleagues looked at me, that it would take away my opportunities. But I wasn’t a college student, terrified and thinking so abstractly and distantly about my future. I was here, I was in a position of power and respect, I had gotten myself here. And at the end of the day, if I had to choose between my friends and my job and my “power” and my “respect” or waking up to Marco, I would choose Marco.

I had finally gotten there. Losing him for that week made me realize that. It would be hard, it would be terrifying, but I knew what it meant to really lose Marco, and I wasn’t going to do it again. Not for anyone.

It was just that I’d already lost him again.

I held out as long as I could. And then I showed up at his apartment a week later, with pizza and beer and everything I could think of. With so many apologies that the words started to feel like an ancient language in my mouth, a foreign incantation that I didn’t understand well enough to use. I said it anyway.

I never told him that I got the chance to spend that week of Christmas with him because Sasha and I had agreed to spend the holiday apart. She wanted to go see her family up in Vermont, all she kept talking about was going to see Connie and spend a couple days with him so she could clear her head. I told her I was going to work anyway, so it ended up an agreement. I never told him that we’d been fighting, and the night of the holiday dinner thing was the first night we’d actually calmed down enough to be around each other and friendly again. That after Marco left, I had to go upstairs and deal with Bert and his fiancee and Connie sitting at my table. That I felt like putting my fists through a wall, but I just sat there, and when Sasha asked me what was wrong, I didn’t say anything.

I never told Marco this because I just thought to myself, why bother getting his hopes up? If I can’t tell him that I left her and I’m staying forever, than what else matters?

That week with him was the best and the worst. 

I got to see what my life could be like. Waking up next to him. Sitting around his apartment all day, watching the snow. Playing video games and watching movies like we used to in college. It was better than college. That’s how good. That’s how sweet those moments were. Those few days I had with him.

We only had sex twice. So technically, I only physically cheated on Sasha three times. But the emotional relationship far outweighed it. When we were in bed together, it was fucking incredible, but I could see Marco struggling to enjoy it and still deal with the guilt and the shame. So I stopped initiating, and we used his bed for other things. Eating pizza in our underwear. Falling asleep with the blinds open so we could see the snow. Curling up into each other because it got cold as fuck. 

I just wanted to hold him. I just wanted this to be forever.

We went out to the store for food -- what we could get for Christmas dinner, since half the place had been cleaned out by other shoppers. And I did for him what I couldn’t do in college. I held Marco’s hand as we trailed up and down the aisles of the store. When he slipped away from me for a few minutes to grab something off the shelf, I pulled him back to me by the waist, my fingers grazing his bare skin under my hoodie he wore. And when Marco made me laugh, I kissed him right there in the middle of the aisle.

My heart was slamming in my chest, and the old fear clenched in my gut, but I had decided to just not be afraid. If I was going to lose Marco for any reason, it wasn’t going to be this. And if I was going to lose him, I would show him I loved him first.

It helped that I’d had six years to grow up, to get some goddamned confidence. It helped that no one reacted. It helped that no one really cared. And that was all that I could give him in one shot like that, but it was something.

The highest moment -- this blissful, golden fucking thing that I will never forget -- was when I had to go to work the next morning, and I woke Marco up to say goodbye. He rolled onto his back and looked up at me, blearily rubbing his still sleepy eyes and squinting up at me in the sunlight. 

God. God, I loved him. 

I sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over him, stroking the messy hair off his forehead, running my fingers along his face.

“Don’t go, baby,” Marco mumbled. 

I almost didn’t, when he said it like that. But I had work, and I told him so.

“I’ll be back by eight,” I promised.

“Marry me,” he said softly. 

And all I thought was damn it, I was going to ask you first.

I didn’t let the guilt about making this promise hit me until after I left.

I just leaned over and kissed his forehead and whispered, “you know I will.”

 

*

I keep my promises now. I braid Alex’s hair if I told her I would. I take the extra shifts when someone needs me to cover them. I let Henry come over whenever Sasha or Connie aren’t home because of work. Hell, if I promise Theo that I’m going to watch Power Rangers with him, then that’s what I do. And he’s barely two years old. 

I keep my promises, because there was a time when I couldn’t.

And I couldn’t keep them to Marco.

I didn’t come home at eight. That whole shit storm happened with the car while we were on patrol, and I ended up in the hospital half high with Reiner sitting next to me. I don’t remember what I said before Marco got there.

But I know that this was the moment that changed everything.

This was the worst.

It came in highs and lows. 

High? I yelled at the nurse about Marco being my boyfriend. If I was ever going to show him that I was serious about trying to do this for him, that was it.

Low? I was in a hell of a lot of pain, and the medication makes me nuts.

High? Marco was there. I held onto him because he made me calm.

Low? Reiner walking in. Reiner, who was like a brother to me. Reiner, who made homophobic jokes just like my actual brother. Reiner, who in that moment actually blurred with my brother in my mind, and after so many years of being terrified of my family, I reacted like I would have in college. I let go of Marco. I denied him. I denied myself. I had the fucking nerve to call Reiner gay (which, ok, in hindsight is funny). 

Low? He was convinced.

Low? I had my first panic attack in six years. It was fucking awful. It was full blown and everything that I’d been holding back for years. I was shaking and trying to find my breath and I couldn’t, I just fucking couldn’t.

High? Marco’s arms, tight around me, and his voice in my ear. 

Low? After all the terrible things I had done, he was still soothing me. He was still trying to convince me that I wasn’t just a big fucking joke. 

High? Falling asleep with him. As simple as that. He made me feel better, even if I didn’t deserve to.

Low? Sasha.

Low. The look on Marco’s face.

Low. Telling him that I loved him while I was holding Sasha.

Low. Knowing that Sasha had driven all that way because she was worried about me. The guilt, the crushing guilt. 

Low. Watching him walk out and not say a word.

Probably one of the worst moments in my life.

 

*

 

If you judge me for anything, judge me for how many times I called Marco the next morning. For how terrified I was that I was going to lose him after that. For how much it broke my heart that he was wasting away because of me. And I couldn’t let go of him. Not in that moment. Not again.

No, in that moment, all I could think about was if he was ok, and if we were ok, and if he knew that I loved him, and how scared I was.

So I called him a couple times. Whenever Sasha was away from me long enough, because she was worried about me. That made it worse. So much worse.

My first couple of voicemails, I don’t remember. I just remember the last. I remember sitting on the edge of my bed in an apartment that didn’t feel like mine anymore, with the dead weight of my arm in a sling against my chest. 

I cleared my throat. “I, um...”

I took a breath.

“I wish that Sasha had walked in on us making out or something.” I kept my voice low. “I wish I could just be the disgusting cheater, caught in the act, and get it over with. I wish I knew how to stop making excuses. I wish... I wish I knew how to stop being afraid.”

Afraid of losing him. Of losing Sasha. Of losing my family and my friends. Of hurting everyone that I loved, like I usually did. I cleared my throat, trying not to cry, trying to find the right words to explain.

“She loves me, Marco,” I said softly. “And she’s one of my best friends, and I don’t want to hurt her. But I want... I want you more.” I took another deep breath, and laughed at the image of it. At the absurdity. 

And I said, “I want you, and I want a shitty house and a shitty white picket fence with you, and I want kids with you, and I want to marry you and smush wedding cake all over your face, and I want to be the badass dads in the shitty PTA with you, and I want to be with you until I’m old and fucking crazy and we die trying to race each other in our fucking wheelchairs. I’m so scared. I’m so scared I’m going to screw this up.”

It was the most I’d spoken openly about my emotions in years. It was the first time I said that dream out loud. It was the first time I told Marco that I had hopes for more than just hiding and sneaking around with him. It was the first time I could imagine a life for myself that would really make me happy.

It was so cruel.

And it was the end.

Because I missed Marco’s call. I got his voicemail instead. 

His voice was so soft, and quiet, and tired. It was a shadow. It was a shadow of this incredible person, and it was all that he had left.

“Not if I smush the cake into your face first,” was all Marco said.

And I sat there and felt the weight of what I’d done.

 

*

 

The three weeks after that was me working up the courage to do something. Anything. Anything to end Marco’s suffering, and Sasha’s.

Christ. It hurt so bad. I was fighting with Sasha until we weren’t even talking. And I’d go to see Marco every night after work, and he’d be... I just...

Christ.

This was one of the lowest points in my life. This was it. I’d tried so hard to hold onto both of them -- I’d tried so hard and taken so long to try and figure out a way not to hurt anyone --

And there I was. I took too long. Sasha didn’t want to look at me. Marco barely knew what to say. I was losing both of them. I was hurting everyone.

I stayed in that fucked up twilight half life for three weeks, the guilt and the pain and the fear just... overwhelming. All I could do was offer some small white flag to Sasha so we could actually sleep in the same bed, and every time I went in the shop, I kissed Marco.

Even that’s fucked up. It should have been the other way round, if I intended to stay. And if I didn’t want to stay with Sasha, then all I had to say was I was gay. It should have been so easy. It could have been so easy. Anyone else could’ve done it.

I just... I didn’t know how to get out of the mess I was in.

It was inexcusable. It was awful. It was stressful, and eventually?

I broke. I fucking broke.

I knew that if I made Marco talk to me, something would happen. 

I wanted to leave Sasha. I wanted to be with Marco. I just didn’t know how... I didn’t know what words to say that... I didn’t know how to break the heart of someone I loved. But in the process, I was already breaking Marco’s.

It’s not an excuse. It’s not something to hide behind. I just... It hurt. I was scared. They were the two most important people in my life.

The day that I went into the shop for the last time, I stood in line and waited. Just like I had the day I’d walked in and told him I couldn’t let him go.

Oh god, Marco.

He looked so tired. He looked so drained. 

It broke my fucking heart. Over and over.

I walked into that shop completely convinced that if he just gave me the strength, if he just told me that he wanted me and I could do it, then I would. I would go home and tell Sasha. I would do it.

I waited until it was just me and him in the store.

It took me a couple of minutes. I was just staring at him.

Oh god. My sweetheart.

“Enough,” I said finally. “Talk.”

All I could think was, I have taken all of your strength. I have taken all of your heart. Fucking goddamn it.

Marco bowed his head, a frown creasing between his eyes. He didn’t speak.

“Marco,” I said, “you look at me like you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” he said quietly.

“Real fucking comforting,” I replied.

Marco leaned forward against his hands on the counter. His voice was shaking and low. “She drove five hours just to get to you when she heard you were hurt. I can’t pretend that didn’t happen. I can’t pretend that it’s just the two of us anymore.”

“You think that’s what I’m doing?” I asked. “Pretending?”

He was right. Sweetheart, you were right. I just couldn’t face it.

“I think that’s what we’ve both been doing,” Marco said. He just kept staring at the counter, and my heart had started pounding.

“Marco,” I said forcefully. “Look at me. Look at me.”

He stood up straight, the pain visible on his face, and when he looked at me, I just... I saw it. I saw it, and I didn’t want to see it.

“I love you, Marco.” It was all I could say. 

“I bet you told Sasha that this morning,” he said suddenly. “I bet she believed you.”

And that was the moment that I realized that my shitty communication skills were doing twice as much damage as I thought.

“Marco,” I started, “I haven’t told her I love her since Christmas.”

“Stop saying my name,” Marco choked out. And then he left me there, heading into the back office, turning away from me.

I followed him. Everything I might not have told him, I was going to tell him then. “Marco, me and Sasha-- we don’t even--”

“Stop!” Marco’s voice rose. “Just stop.”

I didn’t back off. “No-- you fucking listen to me, Bodt. I’m not pretending anymore.”

I genuinely believed that.

Marco didn’t.

He sat down on the edge of his desk, staring at everything but me. I was furious and I was heartbroken and all I wanted to do was hold him.

“I can’t get her out of my head,” Marco stammered. “I can’t...”

Oh god.

“I know.” My voice was angry. I was angry at myself. “I know it’s killing you, you don’t think I see this? My life is a lie-- and it’s taking me a long time to accept that, and it’s taking me a long time to get out of it. But that car accident-- this--” I lifted my arm up and showed him the cast. “It woke me up.”

And that was true. I’d seen that car coming at me, and my first thought was, who’s going to tell Marco? Because he was important to me. Because he was the most important to me. I’d known that all along. But I just...

What had really changed me was that voicemail.

I was awake. And I knew that I had to do something.

I didn’t know it would be this.

I didn’t know he would do it.

Marco turned around to look at me.

“So you’re awake,” he said. “And I’m awake, too. And I’m done sitting here holding on to all the little things, the tiniest hopes that won’t amount to shit, and all I’ve ever been these past three months was a secret. That’s all. Three months of lying and hiding, and three months of Sasha’s life she’ll never get back. And three months of mine.”

I stared at him. He completely fucking threw me for a loop.

“You regret this?” I asked finally.

Marco didn’t say anything. I could see the ridge of his jaw, I could see him fighting back tears.

“You do,” I said. 

“I--” Marco started, then stopped when his voice broke, then started again. “I have loved you always. Always. And I never regretted it. But six years ago, loving you just meant hurting me. It just meant keeping us a secret. And now-- it means hurting Sasha, and it’s totally different, and I couldn’t see that until the moment that she walked into your hospital room.”

It was shattering. It was painful as shit.

It was the first time he’d sounded like the Marco that I loved in a really long time. The first time he’d stood up for himself. God, my boy. My man.

I felt like a monster. I felt like all he saw in me was my mistakes.

“You don’t think that I look at her every day and imagine the fucking pain I have to put her through?” I asked.

Marco’s anger shot up. “So you think putting it off is going to make it better?!”

“I’m doing what I can!” I lost control. I yelled back. “I’m trying not to be so fucking terrified, and I’m trying not to lose you, and I’m trying not to hurt her, and--”

“You’re doing all of those things, Jean!” Marco’s voice was hoarse. “All of them! Every day you wait longer!”

And that was the moment I realized.

I didn’t know what to say. It took me a minute to process.

“I’m losing you?” I asked finally.

Marco rubbed his face. “I don’t... I don’t recognize myself anymore, Jean. I’m not this person. I don’t know how to spend my life in this fucking purgatory, waiting for you. I shouldn’t have to be this person just to be with you.”

He was right. I felt the same way. I wanted the real Marco. I didn’t want him to sacrifice himself over and over like that.

But I knew where this was going.

My throat felt thick. “I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

Marco’s eyes filled with tears again. “I never realized that I have spent six years being that person. I have been waiting all this time for you to walk through that door, for you to be the man that I know you can be.”

“I want to be him.” I was gonna start begging. “I want to be the one you want.”

“You’re doing to Sasha what you did to me in college,” Marco said quietly. “And I’m not going to sit by and watch you torture her because you don’t know how not to torture yourself. I’m not going to sit by and let you torture me just because I love you, and I know how to survive it.”  

“What if I do it?” I asked. “Right now?”  

Marco looked up at me with those eyes. “Do what?”  

“I’ll tell her the truth,” I said. “I break it off. If I show up at your apartment with all my shit packed tonight, would you let me in?”  

I needed him to say yes. Just say yes. Make me brave. 

The tears ran down his face. “Why do you have to do that?”  

I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t keep the space between us anymore. I came over to him and wiped his tears with my good hand, leading my thumb under his eyes. Fuck, he was going to make me cry, too. I could taste the salt in my mouth.  

“Do what?” I asked finally. Knowing the answer.  

Marco leaned his face into my fingers and closed his eyes. “Give me hope.”  

“I’ll go right now.” My voice rose urgent, and I tipped his face back in my grip until he looked up at me. “I’ll do it right now. And I’ll show up at your apartment, and I’ll leave my socks all over the place just like you hate, and I’ll cook you a really shitty dinner, and I’ll be yours. Just tell me you still want me. Please.”  

I knew the answer. And deep down, I knew that this was better. But I just... It never gets easier. Leaving him. I couldn’t stop wiping his tears away. I couldn’t let him go. He broke my heart, over and over. The way I had broken his, except Marco did it to save himself.  

Marco whispered, “I got lost in you. I got lost.” 

I knew he was right. But god, I couldn’t...  

“You’re here.” My voice broke. “You’re right here, sweetheart.”  

Marco took a deep breath. “I don’t... I don’t-- I don’t know how to be anything but the boy who waits for you to tell the truth. I don’t want to be that anymore. And there’s always going to something else you want me to hide.” 

\-- 

Wait. Just give me a minute.

  I just-- I didn’t know how...  

Marco.  

Marco, if you’re reading this. If I finished this, and I handed it over to you, and if you’re reading this, I... 

Just know that you. You are my strength. You are my courage. You are my heart. And in a perfect fucking world, I would have always loved you and taken care of you the way I do now. I wish I could go back and find the kid I was in college, on the first day. Because I’d punch him right in the fucking face. Because when he met you, then he would know. He would know that you’re important. 

But I can’t. I can’t, honey.  I’m so sorry. 

Thank you for being so brave. Thank you for our life together. Thank you for leaving me when I needed it.  

Thank you for this.

 

\--   

I was standing in that flower shop, not letting go of him. Begging. 

“Please, Marco. Please.”  

Please tell me not to go. Please tell me I didn’t fuck it up again.  

Marco stared at me for a long time. We stared at each other. 

I knew, suddenly, then. I knew.  

Marco closed his eyes and swallowed hard. And then he shook his head, his face turning into the palm of my hand like he was kissing me. But he wasn’t.  

And I knew.  

I let him go. I took a step back. I didn’t let myself look at him anymore.  

“So that’s it,” was all I could say.  

Marco was silent.  

We tend to leave in silences.  

So that’s what I did.  

I left him there, sitting on the desk in the back office. I shuffled my way through the flower displays around the counter and left the shop, slamming the door behind me. The bells went nuts above the door.  I stood on the pavement outside the shop for a long time, crying. It was all I could do. Perfect moment to start expressing my emotions in a healthy way, right? 

A second time. A third time. I don’t know how many times I had lost him. 

There was always hope afterwards. There was always a chance that I could find him again.  

It didn’t feel like that anymore.  It was dark already, and I was glad. I didn’t need to do this in the plain daylight.  

Nobody needed to see me walking away from Marco for the last time. 

For good.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you see why i wasn't going to just leave you with this chapter friends


	13. I Can Feel A Hot One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I took it like a grown man crying on the pavement / Hoping you would show your face... / I was in the front seat, shaking it out / And I was asking if you felt alright / I never want to hear the truth / I want to hear your voice, it sounded fine... / I could feel my heartbeat taking me down / and for the moment, I would sleep alright / I’m dealing with a selfish fear... / The blood was dry. It was sober. / The feeling of audible cracks... / And I realized that then you were perfect... / And it looked like a painting I once knew / back when my thoughts weren’t entirely intact. / To pray for what I thought were angels / ended up being ambulances / And the Lord showed me dreams of my daughter... / And I felt love again.”
> 
> \-- Manchester Orchestra, "I Can Feel A Hot One"

You learn a lot, crying on the sidewalk in the dark.

You learn that the city keeps moving around you, and sometimes, you are nothing but a silhouette.

You learn that light comes from places that you didn’t expect. A doorway left cracked on the other side of the street. A lamp overhead that keeps flickering.

You learn that there is always somewhere that you should be.

I stood there for a while. A few yards away from the shop. And then I got in my car, and I went to where I needed to be.

I had gone to Marco so that he could make me brave. Then I would do it, then I would tell the truth. Then I would do right by the people that I loved.

I had done right by one. I was going to do right by the other.

And I just had to make myself brave.

It’s actually funny, coming from a cop, right? My whole goddamned job is to protect and serve those who can’t protect themselves. It is literally part of the job to be brave. I threw myself in front of cars for people. I endangered my life and dealt with extreme violence. I was brave. I am brave. 

I just had to figure out a way to save myself the way that I saved others.

So I stood there in the dark. And I felt everything. I felt the devastation of losing him again. I felt the relief of knowing that now, at least, I knew he would be ok. We had made the right decision. Marco had made it for me.

It hurt. It hurt so bad. It was worse than when I left in college. I didn’t know there was worse than that.

And I have this thing about pain. I have to feel it. I can struggle and struggle in my head, I can over think the same goddamned thing a thousand times, but you punch me in the face? I’m cool. My mind goes still. I can think clearly. Part of the reason I like being a police officer-- if I’m having a hard time dealing or making a decision about something, I can go to the gym, or I can train with some of the other officers, or I could go out into the field. I get hit in the head or clotheslined or run a couple of miles, I don’t care. My body is working, and slowly, so is my mind. 

This... This was emotional pain. But it felt physical. I felt like someone had hit me over the head and kicked me in the chest and smashed out my knees all at once. I couldn’t catch my breath. 

And for the first time in months, for the first time in years, my head was clear.

I knew what I had to do.

I felt all of it. I let it cripple my heart and choke my throat nearly closed.

And then I wiped my fucking face, got in my car, and went to go be brave.

 

*

I started with Sasha. I didn’t try to figure out what I was going to say to her on the drive over, I just figured whatever was the truth would come spilling out. I couldn’t think ahead anyway. My brain was functioning on adrenaline and clarity and pain. And barely any sleep. I probably shouldn’t have been driving.

I was hoping it would be civil. It would be quick, and quiet, and even if Sasha got mad, even if she raised her voice, we could figure it out. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to lose her. I had already lost...

I was hoping it would be quiet. But when I got up to the third floor of our building, I saw that my apartment’s front door was swung wide open. And when I got in, I found Sasha sitting in the middle of the living room, tears streaming down her face.

I got down next to her immediately, my brain spiking with fear. 

“What happened?” I asked her roughly, touching her shoulder, trying to tell if she was in shock. There were clothes and papers strewn everywhere around the living room -- I mean, we were messy, but usually not this messy.

Sasha didn’t say anything. She took a deep shaking breath and wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her shirt, not caring when her eyeliner smudged out under her big brown eyes. I wiped it away carefully with my thumb, and Sasha turned those eyes on me, staring at me like she hadn’t seen me for a year.

More tears started slipping down her face. 

“Sasha,” I started, because she was gonna make me fucking cry in a second--

“Please make this easier,” Sasha said, her voice breaking.

She was talking about us. She was talking about everything. Once I’d figured out that she hadn’t been robbed or sexually assaulted, I relaxed a little.

I kept reminding myself what I was going to say, but at least I owed Sasha the chance to talk. I sat down next to her, my back leaning against the expensive fucking white couch that my mom had bought for us.

“Make what easier?” I asked softly.

“This. Us,” she said. “Please just-- please tell me you’re cheating on me, ok?”

She shocked the hell out of me. I was trying to find the words, but she continued.

Sasha wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Tell me you’ve been hiring prostitutes. I don’t know, tell me you don’t believe in marriage anymore, or that you’re sexually attracted to balloons, or you’re gay. Tell me something that will make this easier to end, Jean. Tell me something that will make it easier so we can just-- go our separate ways, and realize how fucking dumb this whole wedding is, and I just.. Please.”

She was breaking up with me. She was asking for reasons to do it beyond just what she wanted for herself.

Well, I had the reasons.

And the me three months ago would have told her to stop, because I didn’t want to lose her, and I didn’t want to be alone. That me would have told her that what we had was strong enough.

But who I was in that moment knew. There was something stronger. And I didn’t have it anymore, I'd fucked it up and lost it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

So I gave her the reasons. It terrified me, but I gave them to her.

“Yes,” was all I said.

Sasha looked up at me, shocked. We stared at each other for a long time. This was the longest I had looked at her in weeks. She was tired. She was beautiful. She was my friend, and she was hurting.

Then Sasha sniffed. “Ok, you’re gonna need to tell me what you’re saying yes to, because either you’re sexually attracted to balloons, or--”

“The last one,” I said very, very quietly.

Sasha stared at me. Silent for a long time. And then she nodded slowly.

“It’s Marco, isn’t it?” she said softly.

I couldn’t... I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want to hear his name. I stared at my feet, and my vision got blurry.

I was waiting for her to put the pieces together. I was waiting for her to scream. I was waiting for her to call me a faggot, like I waited for everyone else to.

Sasha put her arms around me.

I held onto her tight, burying my face in her shoulder and shuddering with sobs, being gross and so goddamned heartbroken.

It was wrong. It was some serious Jerry Springer shit, crying to my fiancee about my boyfriend breaking up with me. But she was my best friend first. And I could hear the relief in her voice when she comforted me, and she was crying too, and I just... I knew. I knew that she knew. Sasha’s smart as a fucking whip, and once I started crying, and once she put the pieces together...

We sat back after a while, both of us still wiping tears away.

Sasha looked over at me. “Please break up with me.”

“I’m trying,” I sniffed hard, using the sleeve of my uniform to scrub at my face.

“Well if you can’t do it, I’m breaking up with you.”

“Why didn’t you before?”

“Jean--” Sasha smacked me upside the head. “I tried, you dingbat.” 

“Oh.”

“I tried, and then you came back to me crying, and you scared the hell out of me. I was like, does he really love me this much?” After a minute, Sasha sighed. “I mean, I figured the answer was no. But now I know it wasn’t about me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I’m so sorry, Sash.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me? Do you even know how much easier it could have made all of this? You could have just told me, and we could have had a heart to heart, and I could have gone to Vermont with Connie, and we could h-- oh.”

I looked at her.

Sasha flushed bright red. “Hey, you don’t get to give me that look, mister, I didn’t actually cheat on you. You’re the one with the adultery.”

I cringed at how relaxed she said it, and the apologies were about to start rolling, when Sasha shook her head.

“If you hadn’t asked me out all those years ago,” she said quietly, “Connie would have.”

I was fucking stunned. Mostly because I was an idiot.

“I didn’t know he liked you,” I said.

“Neither did I,” she said quietly. “But I started talking to him again at the end of summer, you know, I missed him, and we just kept talking more and more... And he would give me advice on how to deal with stuff with you, and he came over for the holiday dinner thing...-- Oh my god. Marco was talking about his ex-boyfriend at that dinner, are you his shitty ex-boyfriend?” she asked suddenly.

I cringed again. The whole hearing his name thing. Being reminded that amongst the relief of talking shit out with Sasha, there was still that aching hollow in the middle of me. Because I couldn’t get up from the floor and go tell him.

“I can’t believe you...” Sasha muttered. “But anyway, I stayed with Connie for a few days when I went up for Christmas, and nothing happened, but he... He told me that he had feelings for me. And I just...” She swallowed, then took my hand out of my lap and laced her fingers through it.

I looked up at her again, at the person I trusted most in this world besides the boy in the flower shop. Sasha lifted my hand to her lips and kissed it.

And then she said softly, “I asked you if you ever felt butterflies. And you blew the question off. I asked you, remember? At the beginning of October. I asked if you ever thought that there was someone out there who could give you more than just what I could.”

I didn’t answer. I swallowed hard.

“You found yours,” Sasha said softly. “And I found mine. And it’s not the two of us.”

We talked more. I told her everything. From the beginning. From when I met him.

It hurt her-- I saw it hurt her, sometimes. She felt stupid. She felt ridiculous for not seeing that I had these feelings for men, but I told her, I could have feelings for girls, too. It wasn’t like she was my beard, for fuck’s sake. It hurt her because all the times she thought that I was struggling with problems between her and I, it was really me struggling with him.

I asked her if she hated me for it. Which was a stupid way to word it, but the only way I could think to ask-- was she reacting to this like a woman whose fiance had just cheated on her, or a friend who is disappointed but relieved that a fake relationship is over?

“I wish you’d told me,” Sasha said. “I wish I could have helped you.”

She asked me if I could go back to him.

And I said no. Not then. Not even after I’d figured everything out with her.

He was raw. I’d hurt him too bad. I had more to do than just change my goddamned relationship status on Facebook and get back wedding deposits. 

We tried to make plans about moving out, or who got the apartment, or who got the shitty couch that we both hated. We ended up sleeping on it, huddling together like we always did, Sasha curling into my back and wrapping her arms around my chest from behind. She was my best friend. She is my best friend.

I wouldn’t have gotten through that night without her.

 

*

I woke up the next day the way I always do. Except this time, I had a reason to be afraid.

I lay there on that awkwardly sculpted couch, my vision limited to blurry sunlight and the fabric of the upholstery. It didn’t matter. All I saw was Marco crying.

It would go away eventually. Hopefully. I had learned to live without him once. I could do it again. Probably.

I heard Sasha talking in the kitchen, her conversation one-sided and into a phone. “No,” she said softly. “No, you big dumb goofball, I said we ended it last n-- No you cannot drive down here now and kiss me. No. I dunno. He’s ok... I dunno. I miss you too, Con...”

I had been holding onto this relationship when we were both in love with other people. Sasha hadn’t said anything because she thought that I needed her. I was so afraid of losing my friend that I was willing to marry her.

It was surreal. And it was my fault. The guilt choked me.

I just went back to sleep.

 

*

 

Sleep was my friend for the next few months. When I was stressed out, I slept. Naps were weird and inconsistent and everywhere. I fell asleep still sitting in my squad car one night after I’d finished my shift.

Sasha and I told my parents we were splitting up. 

(I fell asleep in the car on the ride home.)

We met with the owner of our apartment building and changed the names on the lease. I took the apartment with the agreement that Sasha could have whatever furniture she wanted.

(I slept for eighteen hours after that meeting.)

By the middle of February, Connie had been driving up and down from Vermont so often that his pick-up truck nearly shit out on him. I hadn’t had this much time with my bro from college in years. I didn’t feel anything when he kissed Sasha in front of me. He asked me if I was alright with that, if we were still cool, and we were.

I just looked at him, and I thought, I stopped this, too. I fucked this up, too.

(Truth be told, I spent the rest of February functioning just enough that I could come home on my days off and just sleep. I never got anything done.)

Sasha and Connie sold some of the furniture I didn’t want from the apartment, and went to Vegas together with it. I thought it was awesome. I wasn’t surprised when they came back with rings. That’s just how Sasha is.

I kept thinking about everything that I could have had. I kept thinking about how Sasha had fought for what she wanted, for what almost was all those years ago, and she got it. And here I was...

(And here I was, sleeping so much and still so tired, dreaming about freckled hands and never working up the nerve to look him up on facebook or drive past the flower shop again, because I was too busy lying in bed.)

When Sasha called me to tell me she was pregnant, I thought it was amazing. I was glad that she got to have this dream of hers. I was still completely convinced that I never wanted kids. I didn’t want to fuck them up like me.

(But instead of crawling back in bed and closing the blinds after that phone call, I hunted through the internet and found the name of a therapist.)

I watched Sasha be happy and I was happy for her. But I wasn’t happy with myself. 

I wanted him. I wanted him. I wanted him, but I couldn’t have him. Not because I was in a relationship. Not because I was afraid to come out; I was working on that with the therapist, and no matter how weird and cheesy she made me feel, I was still getting better with that. We talked about a lot of shit. I was shocked at so much that I would say, stuff that I’d carried around for years, stuff that I had let control me, and so easily, she validated it and said that it wasn’t how I thought and helped me let it go.

I couldn’t have him because I had hurt him too bad.

I couldn’t have him because I just needed to fucking fix myself first.

That was my excuse. That was why I avoided the shop. 

I told my therapist I was gay on my third visit. I told her I was in love with a man. I explained everything I could. My hands were shaking. I almost threw up.

The lady was impressed by the fact that I had found someone and loved them so deeply and had that sort of connection after everything I had dealt with and been through. She told me I was courageous. I didn’t fucking feel like it, and more than half the credit didn’t belong to me, but ok. I accepted it. I kept talking.

I needed to learn how not to hate myself.

I needed to learn how to accept myself the way that Marco had accepted me.

I needed to learn how to say his name again.

I needed to move forward.

Sasha taught me that, with her huge love for life that I hadn’t seen in years. She taught me that every time she smiled from ear to ear and said gross things like, “the baby has fingernails now, you know.”

Connie taught me that, accepting me back as his buddy without even questioning where I’d been all this time. And with that look on his face whenever Sasha was around.

My parents taught me that, when my mother called Sasha yelling in German about what a fool she was making out of herself, leaving me and then suddenly getting knocked up like she did. And my father let her do this, even though he adored Sasha. I just... You realize that you can’t control where you grew up, or who with. And then you realize that you’re the one who prioritizes the people in your life.

I moved more and more away from my parents. The more I talked to Sasha and Connie, the more I talked to my therapist, the better I felt. The guilt started lifting.

And slowly, I started realizing that everything wasn’t my goddamned fault all the time. Amazing, right? Who knew I was the most self obsessed bastard in the world.

I didn’t tell anyone else outside of those three people about Marco, but I was more open. I talked to my brothers more. I spent more time with the other officers. I didn’t feel like people were watching me so fucking often like I used to. 

(I stopped sleeping so much. By my birthday in April, I actually went out at night. I didn’t come straight home from work and lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and think about his voice.)

I was trying so goddamned hard. More than I ever had before.

I was trying for myself.

I was trying for him.

But I just... something kept stopping me from going to the shop. I wanted to tell him about all the steps that I’d taken, I wanted to tell him that the only reason I had ever tried to be brave was because he saw it in me. 

But I had hurt him too deeply. There was too much. There were too many words, and I didn’t know where to start, and I didn’t know how to say it.

I loved him. I adored him. I missed him. I admired him. I took my strength from him. I woke up and I thought about him. I fell asleep thinking about him. I would stand still for too long and the smell of flowers or soil or paper or that shower soap he used would stir in my nose, and I would ache. I fucking ached for him. 

But I kept going. I kept moving forward. That’s all you can do.

It was the first time in my life that I didn’t have anybody. I mean, think about it-- I’d had girlfriends all through high school. Marco in art college. Kaitlyn in community college, then Sasha soon after. Now it was just me. And I was ok with it. I liked having my mornings to myself. I liked coming home to my quiet apartment and knowing that I didn’t have to hold myself together twenty four hours a day like I used to. If I wanted to cry, then that’s what I was going to do; there was no more calling myself a pussy and throwing the blame around, making myself feel undeserving and selfish.

This took months. 

I still work on it now. I still struggle. It’s ok.

And there were still days when all I could do was stare at nothing and think about nothing but him. It was paralyzing. I owed him a thousand apologies. I didn’t deserve the relief it would bring me to give them to him.

It was six months before I even started considering maybe getting up the nerve to go talk to him.

I knew that Marco would be proud of me. But I didn’t know what kind of place he would be in, and the last thing I wanted was for him to look at me at that moment and say, “so I wasn’t a good enough reason to do it?”

And the answer to that question, honestly, is no. Marco wasn’t a good enough reason. You have to do these things for yourself. You have to be stronger for yourself. You try to do it for anyone else, and it fails miserably. Look at my track record.

I was just terrified of causing him any more pain.

I worked my way toward him the way that I always do. Slowly. Inching towards him, driving a street or two closer to the shop every day. Until I wasn’t going so out of my way anymore to avoid it, but I wasn’t driving past it like I used to.

It was July before I worked up the nerve to go. To drive there before work, to stop and see if he was still there, if the shop was still open. If he still wanted to have anything to do with me.

This time, I decided, shoving my feet into the boots of my uniform and cringing at the humid moist heat that felt like weights on my legs. This time, I would do nothing but talk. I would do nothing but be his friend. That’s what he wanted, then that’s what he would get. If he didn’t want me, I would turn my ass right back around and leave.

I was in my squad car with the window open, sitting in traffic just a few blocks away from the flower shop. I remember how hot it was. I remember feeling sweat bead on my neck and roll down into the collar of my uniform shirt. 

And then the call came over the radio.

 

*

It’s a breath. That’s how I describe your time here. Your life here.

It’s a breath. You can either take it, and watch the exhale fade, or you can refuse it and suffocate.

I’d been suffocating for so long. And finally, finally when I start to breathe...

The CB radio crackled on the dashboard of my squad car; I couldn’t make out the words, so I turned the car’s air conditioning down and swiveled the volume dial on the radio.

I wasn’t on shift yet. But I had my badge and my gun, I had the bare bones of my uniform, enough to be able to at least assert authority. I thought, if someone needed back up, then I could just stop on my way to the precinct.

When I recognized the call number the dispatcher was issuing, my sweat went cold.

Shooting.

She gave the address, and as soon as I realized that I was just a few blocks away, I knocked the switches for the sirens and lights on the car and forced my way through the middle of traffic as smooth and as fast as I could. My mind was racing, but it was clear: I didn’t have any protective gear, I didn’t have a bulletproof vest, I barely had my boots tied. But I was close, and I was a police officer, and this was my fucking job. 

Casualties unknown, the dispatcher kept saying. Shooter still at large.

Life is a breath, and I was breathing. 

I was breathing, I was calling in backup from my precinct, and I was going in.

There were four squad cars already outside the address the dispatcher had given-- a huge building. The potential number of people in there...

The squad cars’ lights were off, and I took the queue, shutting off my sirens as soon as I saw. I didn’t know what their strategy was, but my heart was racing, and I was in that building with my gun in my hands within minutes.

It was a department store. I remember realizing that as I canvassed, seeing the strange pale lighting and shining linoleum floors and all the products laid out. At first, I thought the whole huge room that I was in had been deserted. It took me a minute to see the civilians hiding, shadowed by dress racks and curled up underneath the tables lined with accessories. A young woman under one of those looked up at me and let out a low whimper of fear; I held my finger to my lips, pointed to the door, and made sure that she moved as quietly as possible from her hiding place to the exit.

“Where?” I asked her in a whisper as she passed.

“I dunno,” was all she managed to say through her tears. Then she pushed her way through the revolving doors, and she was gone. 

Two more women went out after her. I couldn’t find anyone else on the first floor, not that I could see. Someone had hit the emergency freeze button on the escalators, and I moved up them slowly, step by step, trying to see what was waiting for me at the top, my finger on the trigger of my gun, listening hard.

And then I heard it. A scream. And two shots, popping like your eardrums on an airplane. Too quiet to be from the second floor that I was on.

I went up to the third floor. Another flight of the escalator stairs.

It was the gym-equipment themed floor. I remember, because the floor wasn’t white linoleum tiles, it was this weird grey green. And the smears of blood along the floor leading around the corner were shaded so dark, it almost looked like it was out of a movie.

But it wasn’t. I could smell the metallic, iron tang.

Footsteps. To my left.

I pressed my back against the wall and kept my gun eye-level and steady. Waiting, waiting, waiting--

Until the man came from behind the bay of elevators that separated the large room, and I recognized his uniform. He held his hands above his head when he saw me anyway, but I lowered my gun. 

The police officer came closer to me, scanning over his shoulder. He was young, so young, maybe a few years older than me at that point. I remember he had these insane blue eyes. Everything is brighter when you’re running on adrenaline, and his eyes were brutally blue. 

“He’s up here,” the cop whispered, his voice gravelly. “I’ve seen 10, maybe 12 casualties.”

“What’s he got?” I hissed back.

“Assault rifle. And some homemade shit. It’s the guy who’s been making bomb threats all over the city, I can fucking smell it on him.” 

“Are there still civilians on this floor?”

“I don’t know. Just cleared the second. Backup?”

“Called in,” I breathed. We didn’t say anything more, because another gunshot gave; this one was louder than I’d heard before, but echoing and distant, from the other end of the third floor. And there was no scream. I wondered if it was a warning shot as I moved slowly from my spot against the wall into the corridor that lead from the main part of that floor. The cop followed me, adjusting his bulletproof vest, trying to shrug farther underneath it.

We moved slowly. There were no more shots for a good five minutes. I checked the doors in that corridor one at a time, throwing them open as quietly as I could and clearing room by room like I had been trained to do. 

And then I got to the last room in the corridor. The door gave under the force of my hand, then quickly whipped shut again, and a frightened whimper behind it told me. There were people still up there.

“Police,” I whispered close to the door. “NYPD, we’re here to help.”

The door budged open, and a twelve year old boy looked up at me. A bruise had started to blossom across his right cheek, and it took me a minute to look away from him and realize.

There had to be forty people, stuffed into that small office. Sitting on the desk, sitting underneath it, hiding behind the file cabinets and binding the door closed with duct tape that warped and weakened in the humidity.

Forty people.

“Christ almighty,” whispered the cop behind me.

“We came in here when the shooter came,” said the boy at the door, his voice rising with panic, “they teach us to hide in rooms at school, and lock the doors, and--”

I hushed him, telling him as nice as I could to drop his voice to a whisper. “Great job, kid. Great job. You just helped all these people. We’re gonna get you out of here now, ok?”

The boy just nodded. I straightened up and raised my hand in a wave to the rest of the people sardined into the room, motioning that they should follow me. 

Slowly. Single file. If anyone made a noise, everything froze up, and these were seconds we were counting, these were people. The only way to make sure they were silent was to split them up like that. The journey was slow.

Until another gunshot came, and this time, a scream. Closer. Still on the same floor. The pace picked up into panic, and the civilians’ voices rose, and they ran for the escalators that we’d been using as an escape route. The other cop and I tried our best to keep them quiet, but that shot was too loud, and the other police officers who had shown up to the scene were nowhere to be found. 

We got those forty people out. I don’t know how. The sound of their yells of fear and panic and relief reached all the way up the stairs to me. 

But it was noise.

It was commotion.

It was a sign that something was going on.

And the shooter was there, at the end of the corridor. 

Staring at me. His head bowed.

He was just a boy. Not even as old as me and the other cop.

The assault rifle was heavy on the strap around his neck. He hadn’t bothered to cover his face with a disguise. I knew what that meant. I knew he wasn’t walking out of there alive. He was going to take whoever he could down with him. Greasy fair hair. Pale skin that looked almost purple in the fluorescent light. Gangly. Tall.

I remember his eyes. I expected them to be scared, or hurt, even. Maybe insane.

The shooter stared at me, and his eyes were cold.

I didn’t move an inch. 

The other cop froze, too.

The shooter didn’t have his hands on his gun. They hung limp at his sides, his fingers black and gloved. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the movement. Slow. Smooth. The other cop was twisting his arm and pulling his gun from his belt--

The sound of gunshots rang out, sharp and hot, and the shooter had his rifle in his hands before the cop could get the aim for his gun; when the cop’s gun went off, the shell went straight into the stucco of the ceiling, because the cop was falling, hitting the floor with a strange crumpling of his body, and his gun skittered across the floor. It made a sound so hollow and plastic that it looked like a toy to me.

But in that motion -- those few seconds of distraction, of the shooter putting a bullet right in the other cop’s neck and forehead, killing him instantly, I knew -- 

I had my gun out. Eye level. My finger on the trigger.

We stared at each other. The boy and I.

His voice was so high-pitched and scratchy when he spoke. He was younger than I thought; a teenager.

“Do it,” he ordered me. “Do it.”

I didn’t move. I wasn’t going to kill him. He was going to be responsible for this cop, and anyone else he’d taken down, in court. I would shoot him in a less serious area, taking him down long enough to get the weapon off him.

We stared at each other.

His assault rifle was pointed at my heart.

It was so silent. So quiet and trembling.

My shaking breath was the loudest thing in the room.

And then they came. The sudden, violent burst of a police siren right outside the building. And with it, the screeching of tires, the screams of men, the familiar voice of my division’s chief. Yelling orders, more police sirens, a flare snaking its red stream of light past the window.

It all happened at once.

It startled the shooter. When he pulled the trigger, the kickback of the gun rocked him almost off his feet.

He shot me with his mouth open in surprise and his bullets moving in a line.

The first one hit me in the leg.

The second, in the stomach.

The third in the chest. Right under my heart.

It was just a few seconds.

And then the shooter was gone, and I crumpled to the ground in the same way that the other cop had. I hit the linoleum hard, slamming my face into the tiles, writhing and shaking and biting back screams against the pain.

There is a fire that never goes out, and never dims, and never finds relief. And it’s gunshot wounds. It’s tissue bitten with metal and the heavy weight of the impact. It’s the blood, filling your mouth and running out of your nose, and worst of all, pooling under your head and your back so the floor is warm, then sickly cool again after just a few minutes. 

I gasped for breath, the pain overwhelming, everywhere, from three different places but really all over my body. Hot like a bruise, sharp like a burn, dull like a blade. I forced myself to shift, just a little bit, until I was lying on my back; I couldn’t hold back the scream of pain between my teeth, but the move was worth it. I arched my back and held myself, muscles taut, away from the floor for a moment, trying to gather the strength to get up and go after that fucker. 

The strength was gone when the blood got worse, pooling faster underneath me, the muscles torn and aching and the sight of so much blood making me sick. My vision started to spin, and the pain, oh fuck, the pain. I was breathing hard, wheezing, because I could feel the hot blood weighing down my lungs. 

If the SWAT team and back-up had gotten there, then they were on the first floor, clearing room by room and working their way through. 

The first floor.

I figured out that by the time they got to me, I would be dead. The blood was too much. My math wasn’t too bad for a guy with three bullets in him, you know?

I accepted that this was where it ended. 

I accepted it.

I was prepared for this.

My hands were shaking, and my vision was nothing but colors and shapes.

Your whole life is supposed to flash before your eyes.

Your whole life. Beginning to end. 

But all I could think about. 

All I could remember. 

Marco.

It got harder to breathe. The pain was taking over me, shuddering my breaths and making my teeth chatter. There was definitely blood in my lungs, and I felt like I was drowning.

“Some day,” he’d said to me once.

I could hear the sounds of boots and clunky protection gear from the escalator well. The teams were moving up to the second floor. My whole body felt cold.

I remembered the last time I had felt that cold, and it was lying under a tree in the snow at two in the morning, the day before I left art college.

Marco had held onto me. There was snow in his hair. I remembered.

The SWAT Team’s sounds faded away. 

More gunshots.

Raised voices, warning the shooter to put his weapons down.

Marco had held onto me, and put his head on my chest, and said, some day.

Some day, it won’t be this hard. For me and you.

Some day.

I closed my eyes.

Some day.

And then a voice rose from the stair well. Deep and steady, a voice that I recognized, a voice that I sat next to every day. 

“We got an officer down!” Bert roared into the stairwell. I heard his long strides come towards me and the strange sound of fabric and drying blood crushing together when he knelt down next to me. 

“Fuck,” Bert muttered, his voice shocked and vague. He put his fingers to my throat and pressed down, searching for a pulse; it made me cough and choke, and I opened my eyes long enough to see the relief on his face. 

“Christ,” Bert said, “oh Christ, Jean. Hold on, alright?” He pulled his radio from his belt and hit the button. “Officer down, repeat, Officer Kirschtein, ah-- three GSW...”

That’s where my memory ends.

 

*

 

I woke up for five minutes in the back of the ambulance.

It was the worst five minutes of my life.

The pain was overwhelming me, coming in waves, a typhoon that can’t make up its fucking mind. Where was the pain coming from? How bad? I couldn’t tell. I was drowning. I didn’t realize I was screaming, my voice hoarse and howling and rising with the pain, until I saw the face of the chief of police hovering over me.

“Jean,” he said firmly. “I’m gonna need you to shut the hell up right now, alright?”

I bit my lip to muffle the sound, but my breathing was strained, and my vision was swimming again, and fuck, it hurt. Tears slid from the corners of my eyes and pooled in the shells of my ears. I was literally going to start begging the chief to kill me, but his voice was forceful and calm over me.

“We need you to identify the shooter, Jean. We need you to confirm who shot you, so we can take him into custody.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew they do this. I knew that they wake the officer up even if he’s suffering; I knew that they take away his morphine just long enough to get the information they need. It’s part of the job. It’s a good thing.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the pain long enough to think about the words.

The image of the shooter kept flashing in my head.

The way he’d just appeared at the end of the hallway, his head bowed.

I choked the words out one by one, through gritted teeth, through what felt like burning torturing violent fire all over my body. One at a time. “Tall. Skinny. Blonde. White. Assault rifle.”

The chief scribbled it down on a pad of sticky notes in his hand. Usually he had some kind of formal notebook, or at least someone standing there taking notes for him. But no. In that ambulance, on that day, he had post-it notes.

“Marco,” I choked out.

The chief looked up from his notes. “Eh? Was that a name? Did you find out the asshole’s name?”

“Mar...”

Black again.

 

*

 

I don’t know how long I was in surgery for. A long ass time.

 

*

 

I remember waking up in the ICU. My room was dim, and utterly silent except for all the goddamned machines hooked up to me. Taking my heart rate and measuring every level I’ve ever had. Beautiful thing, having someone measure your piss.

I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. And then that truck had backed over me a few times. And then it had sucked all the moisture out of my body. My mouth was so dry, I couldn’t even form words right.

A nurse came in, took some notes, gave me a cup of water with a straw, and when she was sure I was strong enough to hold onto it, she let me. She came back when the plastic cup was empty and put it on the small table next to the bed.

“You think you’re strong enough for visitors, hun?” she asked me.

My head leaned back against my pillows; I looked at her from that angle, my eyes heavily lidded with pain medication and exhaustion. But even then, I must have looked surprised.

I didn’t think anyone would come. I mean, I knew they might call Sasha, I hadn’t had anyone to replace her name with on my emergency contact list. But she was all the way up in Vermont. And my parents would come, but when they had time.

And the one person I wanted to see would’ve had no idea.

But I nodded anyway, letting my eyes slide closed as she left. I figured it would be the chief of police, asking more questions. Taking more post-it notes.

I could feel the cast on my leg for where the one shot had gone through my thigh. And the dressings on my chest, spanning from my chest down to my stomach. I just kept my eyes closed, pondering what I was going to do about not sleeping on my stomach...

And whenever I closed my eyes, I saw him.

Marco at 20. Marco at 26. Marco smiling at me whenever I woke him up in the mornings. The arch of his back. That moment in the snow.

Some day. The words tumbled over and over in my head.

I kept thinking about that post it note I’d left.

He’d said some day. I’d promised every day.

It felt like a dream.

And then there were footsteps.

I was suddenly back in the department store again, looking for the sound of the shooter, and seeing the corridor, empty then full, the boy appearing so suddenly at the end of it, staring at me--

My eyes shot open, my heart rate spiking audibly on the monitor.

He froze and lingered in the doorway, his whiskey eyes wide with fear. 

Sweetheart.

My voice sounded like shit, but I spoke anyway.

“Fuck,” I said. “I’m definitely dead.”

I was only kinda joking.

Marco closed the door behind him and came over to me slowly, sitting down in the chair next to the bed. He wouldn’t stop staring at me. His eyes were all over me. And I was glad, because I was eating him up, too.

He looked so good. He looked healthy, and handsome, and happy. Apart from the mortal fear on his face, he looked better than I had seen him in years.

Marco just stared at me. Which was fine, because I just stared at him.

But I was suddenly terrified that he was just a hallucination from the drugs.

And then Marco stood up and hovered over me, and he touched me. His fingers were tender and gentle, cradling my bruised face, and Marco ran his thumb over the line of my jaw, the dry chapped surface of my lips.

He touched me, and I was alive. I was really alive then. It wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t purgatory. It was the first time I’d felt finally safe.

And when Marco sat down on the edge of the bed and held me in his arms, I hugged him as best as I could. I buried my face in the crook of his neck.

And I was home.

 

*

 

The pain. The fear. You don’t experience getting shot without letting it change you.

I let it change me. I let it be the moment that I never went back on.

I wasn’t going to almost die on a floor thinking about Marco, and let him leave after that, you know what I mean? I was never letting him go again.

If he wanted me.

Which, turns out, he did.

He was patient and kind and supportive and firm when I needed him to be. And the best part was, he was shocked as hell when I kissed him in front of my parents. When I kissed him in front of Sasha. When I kissed him in front of everyone.

I didn’t give a shit. I loved him. And I loved the satisfaction I got when his face turned bright red, ha.

We went through a lot, and I was doing it with Marco, or I wasn’t doing it at all.

I still have nightmares sometimes. About the shooting.

About that boy, standing there with the assault rifle dangling from his neck.

It’s my wake up call when I have dreams about it. It means that I’m too stressed, that I’m too obsessed with something, that I’m terrified.

It means that whatever is going on in my life, I’m not appreciating it enough.

So when the dreams happen, I wake up. I cry. I start shaking, and I panic. That will never go away. But then Marco wakes up, and turns the light on, and I’m alright.

And then I figure out whatever the hell I’m doing wrong in my life, and I fix it. Easy as that.

I had to experience the worst fear of my life for it to validate and overcome every other fear.

I had to lose the love of my life to realize what he meant to me.

I am the lucky one. I am the one that Bert found.

I am not the police officer who helped me get those people out, lying still and cold on the floor with a bullet in his forehead.

I am not him. I was given another chance. I was given this life, I was given a life with Marco and our wedding day and the first time I held my child, I was given this chance to do better, and I’m not going to let it go to waste.

I think about that other cop every day.

I remember. And I honor. And I keep going. I do the best that I can.

 

*

 

There’s a lot to say when you don’t speak for years.

There’s a lot to say when you don’t tell the truth. When you just hold it in like that. Like I did. And you end up writing one of these bad boys, right?

I think of all the chances I’ve had, and all the scars I’ve ended up with. I think of all the mistakes I made.

And then I think of all the smallest parts of time that could have gone differently, but didn’t.

I could have never gone in Marco’s flower shop.

I could have never gone to art school at all.

I could have been assigned a different roommate, and walked past Marco on campus every day, thinking nothing more than “there goes that gay guy” and silently fearing if someone else thought the same thing of me.

We came so close to losing everything.

But here I am.

And here we are.

Marco. My Marco. My boy, my man, my husband. My old man. My idiot. My children’s father. My soulmate. My partner in crime. My best friend.

It’s you. It has always been you.

And this is for you.

I love you, Sweetheart.


	14. The End of All Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Whether near or far, I am always yours. / Any change in time, we are young again... / In these coming years, many things will change. / But the way I feel will remain the same. / Lay us down... We're in love."
> 
> \-- Panic! At The Disco, "The End of All Things"

Alright, I think we’ve had enough of the sad heartbreaking woe-is-me bullshit. I’m a real tear-jerker, you know what I’m saying? 

Let me give you my life. Let me give you our happy moments.

Let me start from the real beginning.

 

*

We had been living in Vermont for two years.

I love my town in the mornings. Early, like 6 or 7 AM, when no one’s hanging around downtown except for the people who lived there. The crowds flooding in for the ski slopes or the mountain trails and all of the touristy things, they came at 9 or 10 o’clock, right after all those lukewarm continental breakfasts all the motels up the street served.

No, I liked my town early. I’d been down in New York for the last week, working with Reiner and my old precinct on a case that I’d had before I transferred. And every single day, I’d been looking forward to coming home like this; I’d started driving at one in the morning just to get up here while the streets were quiet, and the sun was still hovering behind the mountains. 

Just in time to wake him up.

I could feel the small box in the pocket of my jeans. I kept compulsively checking to make sure that it was still there, I hadn’t lost it or it hadn’t gotten stolen on the subway or something. Even though I hadn’t taken the subway.

I don’t know. Whatever, I was nervous, ok?

I sat in the front seat of my car for a while, parked right outside our shop. I was home, but I was holding off the welcome rush, the sound of the bells on the front door and the smell of flowers following me up the stairs to the apartment. 

I had been trying to think of what to say the entire drive up here, and I still had nothing. I don’t know, how do you practice that? I was so nervous, my palms were sweaty. I got out of the car and headed for the shop, figuring-- what the hell. I’d wing it. I’d figure out how to do it when the moment came.

I wiped my hands surreptitiously on my jeans and headed up the stairs. 

I loved this apartment. I loved our home. I loved the way the light moved down the hallway as the day went on. I loved that everything in that moment was warm from the sun.

I kicked off my shoes and left my socks in the doorway, peeling my layers off as I went; jacket, hoodie, flannel, until it was just my t-shirt. I felt the weird pull of the gnarled skin where my scars were on my chest -- I always felt that now, the skin tugging when I raised my arms over my head. It was a part of me.

He loved them. He kissed them. So it didn’t bother me.

I nudged the bedroom door open and found exactly what I was expecting; a lump of covers and sheets and thick blankets in the middle of the bed, his toes sticking out of one end, and a messy, short flop of thick dark hair on the other.

I crawled into bed and in the middle of the mess, I found him.

Marco moaned when I wrapped my arms around him from behind. 

“Cold,” he mumbled.

I didn’t say anything. I just pressed a kiss to his neck. My heart had started pounding for the millionth time that morning, and if I didn’t do it now -- if I didn’t ask him right now-- I was gonna explode.

I pulled the box out of my pocket, looping my finger around the thin gold band nested inside. Then I snuggled into Marco’s back, leaning my face into his shoulder, and found his left hand. 

Marco folded his fingers around mine reflexively. He was falling asleep again, dopey and sighing sleepily. I nuzzled his ear with my nose.

And then I snaked my other arm around him, and slid the ring onto his finger.

It fit perfectly, thank god for sneaky sizing charts and New York jewelers, oh man.

Marco’s eyelashes fluttered open. 

It made me smile, because I watched him waking up, realizing it was morning, realizing I was home. He turned his hand and looked at the ring on his hand, realizing...

Marco’s eyes opened wide, and he looked over his shoulder at me, confused and surprised and still half-asleep. 

I leaned my face into his shoulder and just looked up at him, raising my eyebrows. 

“You got somethin’ to ask me, officer?” Marco said softly, his mouth curving in a smile.

“You already asked me,” I mumbled into his shoulder. “‘M just followin’ up.”

Marco shifted in my grip until he was facing me, tangling his legs with mine and wrapping his arms around my neck. I sank into the heat of his skin, my arms around his waist. Joy coursed through me when Marco put his left hand on my face, his thumb tracing a path across my cheek, and I felt the coolness of the ring on his hand.

He was smiling when he kissed me. And then I was smiling, too, fighting the urge to start practically vibrating with happiness.

“You have to say it though,” Marco murmured, wiping the hair off my forehead, touching my face again, rubbing my arm to make me warm. Doing stuff with his left hand just for an excuse, because he couldn’t stop looking at the ring.

I couldn’t stop looking at him.

“Marry me,” I said softly.

Marco looked up at me, fighting a smile long enough to kiss me. Soft and slow and sweet, the way he always did. 

“You know I will,” he breathed.

I held onto him tighter and leaned my face in the crook of his neck, suddenly tired from the relief. I’d bought that ring on my first day back in the city. I’d been sitting there in my hotel room all week, nearly snapping in half with excitement and anxiety, wondering if I should just ask him over the phone when he called me at night.

What, did I think he was going to say no?

I don’t know. I was nervous. He’s my love. 

The relief was so overwhelming that I could have fallen asleep like that, slowly warming up with Marco and the blankets, still in my jeans. I almost did fall asleep; Marco stroked my hair, his fingers lazy and gentle, and my eyes were sliding shut by the time he spoke again.

“How was New York?” he asked softly.

“Mmm.”

“The same?”

“Hmm.”

“Did you talk to your dad?”

I opened my eyes. It took me a while to think of how to explain it.

“Not enough,” I said finally.

Marco kissed my hair. The ring was already warm from his hands when he swept the hair away from my forehead.

And then he made a surprised noise. “Oh. I got a present for you.”

Before I could object -- before I could tell him that I didn’t need a present, before I could tell him to stay in that damn bed with me -- Marco pulled away and climbed out of the blankets. He shivered when he got out of bed, standing there in the light from the window with nothing but his t-shirt and boxers, but he was determined.

I flipped over onto my back, hunting down whatever warmth I could find that he’d left in the bed, and watched him sift through the pile of papers and shop invoices on the dresser until he found what he was looking for.

Marco came back to bed and yanked the covers over his shoulders. Instead of lying down, he straddled my hips and sat back on top of me, folding his long legs underneath him.

“In case you punch me,” he explained with a smile. “I can pin you down easier.”

And then he handed me the slim shipping envelope in his hand, one of those long manila things you can stuff a package in without having to pay an arm and a leg for shipping. 

I glanced up at him warily, raising an eyebrow. “You’re gonna pin me down?”

“Done it before,” Marco said with satisfaction. “Open it, baby.”

I sighed, tugging a pillow behind my head so I could sit up further. Then I slid my finger under the envelope’s seal and peeled it open, rustling the plastic inside.

I saw the colour of it first. Red.

“I noticed a few weeks ago,” Marco said softly. “I just figured you still had it, and it was just lost in all the boxes, but when I finished unpacking and it wasn’t there...”

I pulled the red beanie out of its plastic slip and turned it over in my hands. The wool of it was new, unstretched and unfaded, and the tag on it was the same brand as my old one. The one from college.

I looked up at Marco, a lump in my throat.

I used to not know how to say what I meant. But I was working on it.

“Thank you.” My voice was a little shaky. “Thank you, Sweetheart.”

Marco grinned. He leaned forward and kissed my forehead.

This was my perfect opportunity. He was mid-romantic-kiss, and I caught his face with one hand and tugged the beanie over his head with the other.

“Y-- mmpf-- you’re supposed to wear it!” Marco laughed, tugging it off, his hair sticking up. 

I sat up, wrestling him in my arms until he was in my lap and I had a good chance of getting it on him again.

“I want it-- to -- smell like you,” I insisted, laughing when Marco started pushing me away with the heel of his hand on my cheek. 

“W-- stop it--”

“Come on, nerd, put it on--”

“Jean-- y--”

“Mmppf-- hey--”

We were laughter. We were scuffling limbs and tangled bedsheets and choked out threats of withholding sex and dumping each other. None of them were true.

We were a stupid hat from college and a life that I had never expected.

We were getting married.

We were happy.

The sun broke over the edge of the mountains outside, and the light in our bedroom was gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just...  
> I just wanted to say thank you.  
> Thank you for finding the girl who was too nervous to post anything, but posted a dumb fic about some gay dudes and some flowers anyway.  
> Thank you for every comment. Thank you for every kudos.  
> Thank you for giving me courage.  
> Thank you for this.  
> Thank you to the people who got here first, the people who just found this yesterday, it doesn't matter.  
> Thank you for reading. Thank you for crying, and for laughing, and thank you for telling me.  
> Thank you to my incredible, incredible friends. You are so talented and wonderful and kind, and I adore you, and I will always be grateful. For your art, for your stories, for your support, for reading all of my chapters and listening to me rant, for not letting me name Wisteria after a Kanye West song, for your long discussions about uniform kinks with me, for your Drake AMVs, for your cult grazing and Red Beanie Thursdays, for your challenge over the position as Resident Ship Satan. I adore you.  
> Thank you for making me a part of this fandom, and liking my words, and loving my guys.
> 
> At the risk of this sounding like an Oscar speech and me getting all bleary eyed, I just wanted to say thank you.
> 
> I'll keep writing if you keep reading my friends <3


End file.
